Ai and the Modern Productivity Paradox: a Clash of Expectations and Statistics

We live in a paradoxical age. When it comes to technology and the economy we see transformative new technologies everywhere except in the productivity statistics. Systems using artificial intelligence (AI)—and machine learning in particular—increasingly match or surpass human-level performance; news about the rapid pace of technological advancement abounds, and market capitalizations for technology firms are at all-time highs. Yet, measured productivity growth in the United States has declined by half over the past decade, and real income has stagnated since the late 1990s for a majority of Americans. Labor productivity growth rates also fell in a broad swath of developed economies in the mid-2000s, and have stayed low since then.