> The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers.
What makes you think so? What evidence do we have one way or another?
> The real problem with AI is that the productivity benefits are focused with the owners and not the workers.
What makes you think so? What evidence do we have one way or another?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS85006173
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA
The labour share of GDP has been roughly within a narrow 50% to 65%-ish bound throughout. It's moving up and down a bit, yes, but still within that bound.
Btw, if you are looking for a villain, look at the land share of GDP. The capital share has been fairly steady.
We are seeing workers get laid off to free up more money for AI and only the AI techies are making more money? It could be temporary, but the way AI is currently owned and structured, the owners and investors are positioned to reap almost all of the financial benefits whereas workers will just be expected to do more with AI for the same pay and hours worked.
Workers are getting hired and fired in all kinds of economic situations all the time. At the moment, overall (US) unemployment at 4.1% hasn't moved all that much since the end of the pandemic, and is on the lower end of average overall by historic standards. We don't see any impact from AI so far.
As far as I can tell so far, the benefits from AI seem to flow mostly into customer surplus, not towards owners and investors. There's just so much competition between AI providers for anyone but customers to capture the benefits.
I hope you are right, but it definitely feels like everything is turning against workers. They might have jobs, but prices are such that they are still getting by or not at all.
People are almost always complaining about the economy, even when it's going great.
Pick your favourite years when you think the economy was going great for workers, and look at some archived newspapers (or even just the headlines).