Nobel Laureate Warns AI Won't Revive the High Economic Growth Era

Odaily Planet Daily reports: On July 7, Nobel Prize winner in Economics 2010, Pissarides, warned that artificial intelligence will not return Western economies to an era of high productivity growth—a period that may be gone forever. Pissarides noted that up to 40% of jobs in the U.S. and the U.K. are largely unaffected by AI, citing sectors such as healthcare and hospitality. Tech companies and governments are pinning hopes on AI to revive growth rates that have slowed significantly over recent decades. The weak performance of Western economies, particularly in Europe, has made policy trade-offs even more challenging. However, Pissarides stated there is currently little evidence that AI will boost productivity, and he questioned claims by figures such as NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI founder Sam Altman that the technology will profoundly impact employment. While the technology may yield some productivity gains, “I am skeptical that we will see another computer boom like the one in the 1980s and 1990s,” Pissarides said.