Definitely. When computers came out, jobs increased. When the Internet became widely used, jobs increased. AI is simply another tool.
The sad part is, do you think we'll see this productivity gain as an opportunity to stop the culture of over working? I don't think so. I think people will expect more from others because of AI.
If AI makes employees twice as efficient, do you think companies will decrease working hours or cut their employment in half? I don't think so. It's human nature to want more. If 2 is good, 4 is surely better.
So instead of reducing employment, companies will keep the same number of employees because that's already factored into their budget. Now they get more output to better compete with their competitors. To reduce staff would be to be at a disadvantage.
So why do we hear stories about people being let go? AI is currently a scapegoat for companies that were operating inefficiently and over-hired. It was already going to happen. AI just gave some of these larger tech companies a really good excuse. They weren't exactly going to admit their make a mistake and over-hired, now were they? Nope. AI was the perfect excuse.
As all things, it's cyclical. Hiring will go up again. AI boom will bust. On to the next thing. One thing is for certain though, we all now have a fancy new calculator.
Well, I think productivity gains should correlate with stock price growth. If we want stock prices to increase exponentially, sales must also grow exponentially, which means we need to become exponentially more productive. We can stop that — or we can stop tying company profitability to stock prices, which is already happening to some extent. And when we talk about 'greedy shareholders,' remember that often means pension funds - essentially our savings and our hope for a decent retirement, assuming productivity continues to grow exponentially.