US economists predict substantial economic gains, but also significant job losses, as AI takes off.
A survey found that experts — tech workers, economists, and professional forecasters — expect significant AI capability advances by 2030. Under the fastest scenarios, it could drive GDP growth up to levels not seen since World War II, and labor force participation down.
Economists have largely been skeptical of AI’s employment impacts, The New York Times wrote: Many argue that rising graduate unemployment is downstream of high interest rates, rather than AI, and that companies’ claims that their layoffs were AI-driven were a smokescreen for mismanagement. But “they are starting to take seriously the possibility that it could [disrupt the market] someday soon,” the Times noted.
