The Granada Theatre was packed last week for the UCSB Economic Forecast Project’s annual Economic Summit.

Santa Barbara is remarkably fortunate to have the caliber of research and thinking shared at this event.

This kind of information is incredibly valuable to our local business and political leaders and, hopefully, they are paying attention.

This year’s summit explored artificial intelligence and our regional economy, featuring keynote speakers Zack Kass, an AI futurist and former head of go-to-market services at OpenAI; Igor Mezić, a UC Santa Barbara Distinguished Professor and pioneer in AI-driven systems; and Peter Rupert, executive director of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project.

Ed Edick, EFP’s board chairman, opened the summit, which also featured UCSB Chancellor Dennis Assanis.

While the future is always unclear and can be scary, I came away from the event incredibly upbeat and optimistic.

Assanis talked about UCSB’s global reputation and significant economic impact on our region.

UCSB is Santa Barbara County’s largest employer and generates more than $1 billion in annual economic impact, accounting for more than 11% of the local economy.

The university also serves as a major driver of regional growth. UCSB graduates have launched more than 90 local companies, and the school receives more than $250 million in federal research funding.

Rupert presented “How’s the Economy,” but he kiddingly admitted being “unprepared” for the talk.

He then welcomed his former intern and analyst at Apple, Chris Lee, to join him at the podium. Lee shared how, during a two-month sabbatical, he used AI to do a major restructuring of EFP’s work and its 2026 outlook.

Rupert asked him to demonstrate how AI could present data in the EFP outlook “on the fly,” instantly updating Santa Barbara charts with just a click to add comparisons to nearby cities, California and the nation.

The data showed a mixed bag of good and bad economic results for Santa Barbara. SThe county real GDP grew faster than California and the United States, but inflation was higher, too.

And, of course, Santa Barbara is No. 1 in high rents, up 95% since 2011 compared to 67% nationwide.

With high housing costs front of mind here in Santa Barbara, Rupert again reminded us that rent control just makes things worse. He noted that the honest answer is to increase supply by reducing barriers to building.

He observed that Austin, Texas, did just that — and rents there have fallen 19% since 2021 while its population grew.

By comparison, U.S. rents were up more than 10% and the rest of Texas was up more than 6% during the same period.

Austin chose to build 120,000 units from 2015 to 2024, three times faster than the United States — driven by zoning reforms, affordable housing bonds and permitting reform. ECON 101: when supply increases, prices fall.

Rupert’s charts demonstrated the relentless economic growth of the United States — regardless of all the “stuff” that happens along the way.

Despite recessions, wars and especially fears about technological advances, the data clearly showed how our economy brought ever-increasing prosperity to the country.

The nearby chart depicts the rise of real (after-inflation) economic prosperity per person over the past seven decades.

But Rupert also noted — as I have in previous columns — concerns about dramatic growth in U.S. government debt as shown over this same period in the nearby chart.

What most caught my attention in Rupert’s presentation, however, was a focus on something that is on everyone’s mind: concerns about the potential “AI jobs apocalypse.”

Rupert noted the great technological revolutions of the past, including truly life-changing advances like steam and rail (1760-1840), electricity (1880-1920), internal combustion (1890-1930), agricultural mechanization (1900-1970), computers and the internet (1970-2010),

All came with fears of massive unemployment, and now concerns about AI causing massive layoffs are rampant.

History has demonstrated that these transitions are painful and disruptive, but they also create new jobs that were previously unimaginable.

Two notable examples:

• In 1900, New York City had about 150,000 horses that pulled streetcars, wagons, ambulances and fire engines. They produced more than 1,000 tons of manure per day. Experts projected Manhattan could be buried under 9 feet of manure by 1930. The problem was visible, the solution unknown. In 1888, electric street cars arrived, the Model T followed in 1908, and suddenly there were only 200 horses in and around Central Park with a whole lot less manure. Job losses included carriage/wagon makers, blacksmiths and manure haulers. Jobs that emerged included auto workers, mechanics, service station personnel, truck and taxi drivers, highway construction workers, and staff for roadside motels and diners.

• In the early 1970s, the personal computer revolution began. Jobs like typists, telephone switchboard operators, travel agents and bank tellers vanished or shrank dramatically. But jobs that no one could even imagine — like software developers, IT support, cybersecurity, network engineers, web developers, and even entire industries like e-commerce, streaming, search and social media — emerged.

Mezić spoke about “AI for Autonomous Everything” — where we stand and where we’re going. He is clearly a genius; his UCSB bio notes research “is centered around operator-theoretic approach to analysis of nonlinear dynamical systems, applications in microfluidics and (bio)-nanotechnology.”

So, while much of his amazing work is well above my head, he grounded the talk with concrete examples of “superhuman” computers like IBM’s Watson, which a Jeopardy champion, and humorous videos of robots falling down as they attempt tasks.

Mezić noted that large-language models still have a long way to go. But he made it clear these technologies are rapidly advancing and will play a significant role in our future.

He talked about energy problems with massive AI power demands and potential changes in chip technology that might help.

He ended with the incredible fact that the human brain, arguably the world’s best computer, only uses 20 watts of electricity.

Kass, a Santa Barbara native, spoke about “The Next Renaissance & Societal Thresholds,” a lofty title for a highly informative presentation.

He talked about fixing top economic concerns: housing, healthcare and education through policy, not politics. He talked about constantly looking for ways to make things better, faster and cheaper — the same principles used by visionaries like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

“Human potential is the masterpiece, AI is the brush,” Kass said, noting that AI can help us deal with top economic concerns.

Like Rupert, Kass noted “we don’t hate electricity, cars and having a computer in our pocket” — technologies that also sparked fears of massive unemployment when they were introduced.

And again, like Rupert, Kass declared that rent control does not work — supply just dries up.

He noted the need to build more housing, and use what we already have. He said Montecito has an estimated 42% home vacancy with so many second and third homes that are used infrequently. He suggested that owners sell them to families who need homes and just rent at luxury hotels when they’re in town.

Kass even proposed taxing people who don’t live here; it sounded a bit like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax and I’m not sure how well that would sell here, but it was a noteworthy idea.

He also suggested fighting digital devices and social media, and encouraged us to “celebrate local voices.”

Overall, I found the summit fascinating and encouraging as we look to the future — especially as we confront AI, housing and broader economic change.

If Mark Twain was right that “history may not repeat itself, but usually rhymes,” we have a lot to look forward to.