https://arab.news/c9bnz
As more businesses begin to experiment with artificial intelligence and consider how it might improve their profitability, debates about the implications for workers have intensified. In the US, the apparent disconnect between soaring stock-market valuations and falling total, or non-farm, job openings has fueled media narratives about technologically driven job destruction.
Hardly a week goes by without new headlines about companies using AI to perform white-collar jobs, especially those typically filled by new graduates and those lower down the career ladder. According to a report issued by the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions earlier this month, AI and automation could destroy nearly 100 million US jobs over the coming decade. Those voicing such fears can even point to prominent economists who argue that the AI revolution will have only moderate effects on productivity growth, but unambiguously negative effects on employment, owing to the automation of many tasks and jobs.
We disagree on both counts. Our own recent work shows that the situation is far more complicated, and not nearly as dire, as these pessimistic narratives suggest. When it comes to productivity growth, AI can operate through two distinct channels: automating tasks in the production of goods and services, and automating tasks in the production of new ideas.
