The Provocateurs: AI and Economics / Midwife Crones Fight Back

Economists promised AI would boost productivity, raise wages and create better jobs. So why are the numbers flat and wellbeing shaky? Dr Elena Papagiannaki (Edinburgh Napier University) cuts through hype, asks who benefits and investigates whether today’s job losses are truly AI-caused, or conveniently AI-washed. Trained by an Edinburgh man-midwife (1786), Highland midwife Mrs Cowper recorded 4000 births and no maternal deaths. Nicola Ring and Ness McHugh (Edinburgh Napier University) ask why the 100s of women Edinburgh’s world-leading men-midwives trained are historically invisible and dismissed as incompetent crones.