alt Hacker NewsIt's possible that "smarter" AI won't lead to more productivity in the economy. Why?
Because software and "information technology" generally didn't increase productivity over the past 30 years.
This has been long known as Solow's productivity paradox. There's lots of theories as to why this is observed, one of them being "mismeasurement" of productivity data.
But my favorite theory is that information technology is mostly entertainment, and rather than making you more productive, it distracts you and makes you more lazy.
AI's main application has been information space so far. If that continues, I doubt you will get more productivity from it.
If you give AI a body... well, maybe that changes.
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Its quite possible the use of LLMs means that we are using less effort to produce the same output. This seems good.
But the less effort exertion also conditions you to be weaker, and less able to connect deeply with the brain to grind as hard as once did. This is bad.
Which effect dominates? Difficult to say.
Of course this is absolutely possible. Ultimately there was a time where physical exertion was a thing and nobody was over-weight. That isn't the case anymore is it.
> "information technology" generally didn't increase productivity
Do you think it'd be viable to run most businesses on pen and paper? I'll give you email and being able to consume informational websites - rest is pen and paper.
Downvoted by the AI Nazis. They are running a tight ship before the IPOs.
25 years of shipping software, and IT absolutely increased productivity - just not for everyone, not everywhere. Some workflows got 10x faster, others got slower from meetings about the new tools.
AI feels the same. I'm shipping indie apps solo now that would have needed a small team five years ago. But in bigger orgs I see people spending 20 minutes verifying 15-minute AI output that used to be a 30-minute task they'd just do. Depends where you sit.