All posts tagged: Economists

Economists Starting to Admit They May Have Been Wrong About AI Never Replacing Human Jobs

Economists Starting to Admit They May Have Been Wrong About AI Never Replacing Human Jobs

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech For the most part, economists have been one of the few groups of professionals who’ve roundly rejected the AI Kool-Aid. Consensus of the worst-case scenario seemed to center on the idea that AI could upend the job market, but it wouldn’t destroy it entirely. ATMs didn’t eliminate bank tellers, the parable went, meaning new technology isn’t a guarantee that automation will actually change the whole face of an industry. As a sweeping economics paper by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Forecasting Research Institute (FRI), and numerous top universities found, that attitude may be shifting. As time goes on, top economic experts are increasingly factoring extreme AI disruption into their models. Yet acknowledging a possibility and accepting its inevitable are two very different things — and as the complicated range of sentiments makes clear, an AI jobs apocalypse is still far from certain. The study is a tour-de-force of economic forecasting that surveyed 69 economists, 52 …

Can GDP grow while jobs disappear? Economists weigh in on what Singapore’s AI push must get right

Can GDP grow while jobs disappear? Economists weigh in on what Singapore’s AI push must get right

Published by Sam Flores

Prof Powdthavee noted that in general, the link between growth and employment weakens when growth is accompanied by rising inequality. “A country can grow even if most of the gains go to a very small group at the top,” he said. For example, if firms become more profitable by replacing workers with AI, a country’s GDP will rise because output is higher and costs are lower. “But that kind of growth doesn’t require more workers, and it may even reduce labour demand,” said Prof Powdthavee. “This is why growth doesn’t necessarily, or automatically, generate jobs.” When productivity gains mainly benefit those who own capital, technology or data, the economy can “look healthy on paper” while wages stagnate and job opportunities “fail to expand for everyone else”, he said. “In that sense, growth is real, but its benefits are narrowly shared.” Prof Loh said that AI and automation can now perform tasks at levels comparable to humans, which is a negating factor for job growth. Innovation and efficiency gain – where companies gain experience and rely …

‘Repatriate The Gold’: German Economists Urge Withdrawal From US Vaults

‘Repatriate The Gold’: German Economists Urge Withdrawal From US Vaults

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Kate Connolly via The Guardian, Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts Germany is facing calls to withdraw its billions of euros’ worth of gold from US vaults, spurred on by the shift in transatlantic relations and the unpredictability of Donald Trump. Germany holds the world’s second biggest national gold reserves after the US, of which approximately €164bn (£122bn) worth – 1,236 tonnes – is stored in New York. Emanuel Mönch, a leading economist and former head of research at Germany’s federal bank, the Bundesbank, called for the gold to be brought home, saying it was too “risky” for it to be kept in the US under the current administration. “Given the current geopolitical situation, it seems risky to store so much gold in the US,” he told the financial newspaper Handelsblatt. “In the interest of greater strategic independence from the US, the Bundesbank would therefore be well advised to consider repatriating the gold.” Stefan Kornelius, the spokesperson for Friedrich Merz’s …

The Climate Question That Economists Cannot Answer

The Climate Question That Economists Cannot Answer

Published by Sam Flores

Most Americans now accept the basic physics of climate change—that manmade greenhouse-gas emissions are raising global temperatures. Yet the public discussion of climate change is still remarkably broken in the United States. Leaders of one political party frame climate change as an existential emergency that threatens human life and prosperity. Leaders of the other dismiss it as a distraction from economic growth and energy security. Economists like me, trained to think about trade-offs, are uneasy with both camps. But, in practice, we have helped fuel the extremes of this dysfunctional debate. High-profile economic studies claim to quantify the global damages that will be caused by climate change centuries into the future and have produced estimates that range from modest to catastrophic. They have lent a veneer of scientific authority to arguments for both complacency and alarm, even though these studies are far too limited to support either position. Last week, the United States withdrew from the world’s climate treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, among other international agreements and organizations that the …