AI Could Double Productivity Within Decade, Top Researchers Say

AI could soon surpass human capabilities in producing documents and illustrations, while advances in robotics could replace physical tasks like package delivery or high-volume food production.

That’s why government and society need to be prepared for a wide range of contingencies as AI technology improves, two preeminent artificial intelligence researchers said Tuesday.

Erik Brynjolfsson of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and Tom Mitchell of Carnegie Mellon University’s Block Center for Technology and Society were speaking at a webinar to highlight a report by the National Academies they co-chaired on “Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Work,” which was released in November. The Academies, which are partly funded by federal dollars, provide advice and solutions in science, engineering, and medicine.

Some estimates predict that AI could double productivity in the next decade. “In addition, there’s been recent research showing that AI has the potential and has, in some cases, significantly accelerated scientific discovery and innovation, so that would compound the productivity gains,” Brynjolfsson said.

But institutional and policy changes are needed to make sure those gains are widely shared and do not lead to job losses, he said.

The US could be at a crossroads in regulating the new technology, with President-elect Donald Trump likely to repeal an executive order to govern AI issued by the Biden administration. The Trump administration is expected to lean in favor of fewer regulations.

The government must deepen its knowledge of technology to guide policy, the researchers said. One way could be more data collection with a focus on public-private data partnerships to enable timely tracking of AI impacts.

“We are going to have to rethink how we learn and the kinds of skills that we have,” Brynjolfsson said. “I’m finding it a challenge in my own teaching, the kind of assignments that I gave a couple of years ago, I can’t give the same ones because ChatGPT can connect you to a lot of them pretty quickly.”