Nobel laureate: AI cannot recreate an era of rapid economic growth

Golden Ten Data reported on July 7 that Christopher Pissarides, recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics, warned that artificial intelligence will not return Western economies to an era of rapid productivity growth—a period that may be gone forever. Pissarides stated that up to 40% of jobs in the United States and the United Kingdom will be largely unaffected by AI, citing fields such as caregiving and the hotel industry. Technology companies and governments are pinning their hopes on AI to revive the slowed growth rates of recent decades. The weak performance of Western economies, especially in Europe, makes policy trade-offs even more difficult. However, Pissarides noted that there is currently little evidence that AI can deliver productivity gains and questioned the claims of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who believe this technology will have a profound impact on employment. Although the technology may yield some productivity benefits, “I am skeptical as to whether we will see a resurgence like the computer boom of the 1980s and 1990s,” Pissarides said.