Discussion
This article would be hilarious if it weren't about wastefulness underwritten by pending climate disasters.
> In its latest Monetary Policy Report, the central bank found that AI has increased UK productivity by an estimated 0.5 percent over the past three years. That works out to __just 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points of additional annual productivity growth since early 2024__, hardly the economic revolution Silicon Valley has been promising.
I'd love to know how these numbers compare to economic impact of UBI. Like would literally giving away one trillion dollars to artists and writers have resulted in more benefit? They certainly would have been less polluting, so be sure to factor the costs of climate change into your math.
@cczona Also, most ways we traditionally measure the economy (or what we dish out money to people for) is wealth extraction. Did we make the rich people richer? That's the Number in Number Go Up! We did it, Patrick! We saved the city!
There are many other things we could look at that are actually worth our time. Are people less stressed, better able to make their basic needs, able to buy "frivolous" things like hobby supplies or movie tickets? Are fewer people in extreme poverty?
The pressure to define productivity by wealth extractive measures is coming from the rich, and it is - by definition - self-centered.
> "The contribution to growth from AI to date appears to reflect activity in the upstream development and implementation of AI technologies rather than broader gains from their adoption elsewhere in the economy," the report said. __In other words, selling AI is proving rather more lucrative than actually using it__
So the only economic "benefit" is that a lot of money is being thrown at it. So the question is if a trillion dollars were thrown at literally any social benefit program, would the economic benefits be higher?
Uh, yes, duh.
> Other studies suggest businesses are still waiting for the payoff. A Gartner survey published last month found that while three-quarters of corporate board members expected AI to improve productivity and cut costs, __just 3 percent of organizations had actually achieved their targets__. Meanwhile, 38 percent were already over budget on AI spending, yet 85 percent planned to spend even more next year.
Sunk Cost Fallacy in action: we've spent a fortune on accomplishing absolutely nothing, so obviously we need to spend bigger on the failed strategy. Go into debt! That's gotta work.
RE: "38 percent were already over budget on AI spending, yet 85 percent planned to spend even more next year."
The unrepentant idiocy of AI adoption, in one sentence.
@funnymonkey @cczona It is clapping your hands and saying "I do believe in fairies" of CEOs
More evidence for the pile:
> ...[AI] has yielded __zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of the tech industry__. This is the conclusion of an analysis by prominent Danish economist Torsten Sløk, who is a partner and chief economist at Apollo Global Management and has previously held senior positions at organisations including the OECD and the IMF, where he was responsible for the analyses featured in the World Economic Outlook.
https://ing.dk/artikel/leading-economist-shatters-illusion-only-tech-giants-are-profiting-ai
Leading economist shatters the illusion: Only tech giants are profiting from AI | Ingeniøren