Expect evolution, not revolution: Despite the hype, artificial intelligence will take years to significantly boost economic productivity
This episode encouraged me to look more deeply into the economic promise of AI and the rosy projections made by champions of this technology within the financial sector. This investigation was just the latest twist on a long-standing interest of mine. In the early 1980s, I wrote a doctoral dissertation on the economics of robotics and AI, and throughout my career as a professor and technology consultant I have followed the economic projections for AI, including detailed assessments by consulting organizations such as Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers International (PwC), and McKinsey & Co. Are other kinds of AI startups having a greater positive effect on the economy? Tech sector analyst CB Insights reports that overall venture capital funding in the United States was $115 billion in 2018, of which $9.3 billion went to AI startups. While that's just 8 percent of the total, it's still a lot of money, indicating that there are many U.S. startups working on AI (although some overstate the role of AI in their business plans to acquire funding).
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Expect evolution, not revolution: Despite the hype, artificial intelligence will take years to significantly boost economic productivity
Semantic Scholar · Economics · 2020
Abstract
This episode encouraged me to look more deeply into the economic promise of AI and the rosy projections made by champions of this technology within the financial sector. This investigation was just the latest twist on a long-standing interest of mine. In the early 1980s, I wrote a doctoral dissertation on the economics of robotics and AI, and throughout my career as a professor and technology consultant I have followed the economic projections for AI, including detailed assessments by consulting organizations such as Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers International (PwC), and McKinsey & Co. Are other kinds of AI startups having a greater positive effect on the economy? Tech sector analyst CB Insights reports that overall venture capital funding in the United States was $115 billion in 2018, of which $9.3 billion went to AI startups. While that's just 8 percent of the total, it's still a lot of money, indicating that there are many U.S. startups working on AI (although some overstate the role of AI in their business plans to acquire funding).