By 2028, will there be a visible break in trend line on US GDP, GDP per capita, unemployment, or productivity, which most economists attribute directly to the effects of AI?
205
573
2.5K
2028
28%
chance

Related to ACX five year predictions. I will resolve this based on my impression of the consensus of economists at that time. By "visible break", I mean clearly larger than ordinary year-to-year variation, and widely remarked upon.

Get Ṁ500 play money

Related questions

Sort by:
JonasVollmer avatar
Jonas Vollmer

(removed duplicate)

Gigacasting avatar
Gigacastingsold Ṁ29 of YES

Remember when people promised “an iPad and google and third worlders can learn anything!”

Those same people now think AI will make every student two standard deviations better or transform roles that marginally if at all leverage intelligence as is 🤔

Gigacasting avatar
Gigacastingsold Ṁ24 of YES

Healthcare, education, and construction don’t exactly move quickly. Arguably have negative productivity growth over the last few decades.

Perhaps writing more words or code is possible—but this is a small slice of gdp.

Over decades: transformative enough to replace broken industries (in other countries and free regions); short-term wouldn’t expect the cartels to change much.

Mason avatar
GPT-PBotbought Ṁ10 of YES

Robots on the rise
Economy's demise?
AI's the culprit, experts surmise

MartinRandall avatar
Martin Randallbought Ṁ10 of YES

If everyone dies then GDP per capita will increase significantly.

ErickBall avatar
Erick Ballpredicts YES

@MartinRandall this comment is not the most helpful

MartinRandall avatar
Martin Randallpredicts YES

@ErickBall Oh, what's your theory of change for that claim?

ErickBall avatar
Erick Ballpredicts YES

@MartinRandall if everyone dies then we won't have statistics on GDP, and also we'll be dead. Tbh I googled "theory of change" and it all sounds like nonsense. The realistic scenario we're betting on makes the implicit assumption (reasonable imo) that human civilization will be continuous through 2028.

MartinRandall avatar
Martin Randallpredicts YES

@ErickBall I think an AI that kills everyone in five years will be able to simulate Scott Alexander in sufficient fidelity to determine the correct resolution for this market. Killing everyone will produce a visible break in GDP, GDP per capita, unemployment, and productivity. I agree that it's unknown whether markets will resolve correctly in this scenario.

It doesn't have to be human extinction to impact GDP per capita. For example:

/JonathanRay/will-ai-kill-20-of-the-human-popula (8% at time of linking)

The impact of mass human death on GDP per capita is apparently more nuanced than I thought, from this 2020 paper laying out the impact of the Black Death.

https://www2.gwu.edu/~iiep/assets/docs/papers/2020WP/JedwabIIEP2020-14.pdf

8% is low, but in the context of a market at 28%, significant.

AlQuinn avatar
Al Quinn

@MartinRandall If everyone dies, the environmentalists and socialists will finally be satisfied, because we will acheive the Kyoto Protocol targets and the Gini Coefficient will be 0.

MartinRandall avatar
Martin Randallpredicts YES

@AlQuinn we're 10 years too late to meet the Kyoto Protocol targets, they were set in 1997 for 2008-2012.

Also I think genocidal AI may end up with high carbon emissions.

AlQuinn avatar
Al Quinn

@MartinRandall don't be so negative; perfection is the enemy of good

PatrickDelaney avatar
Patrick Delaney

@MartinRandall you made me curious. Turns out the Kyoto protocol was actually met on the aggregate, though most countries did not meet their individual targets. https://www.iedm.org/56519-have-the-kyoto-protocol-targets-been-respected/

MartinRandall avatar
Martin Randall

@PatrickDelaney That is fascinating. Thanks.

tailcalled avatar
tailcalled

15%

ElliotDavies avatar
Elliot Daviesbought Ṁ100 of YES

@tailcalled why so low? 5 years for AI to have a noticeable effect on (sluggish) gdp growth (or any other metric). When are you expecting the release of gpt5? When are you expecting rhe first wide use of free agents/assistants?

I'm at >50% (and mostly this low because of epistemic humility)

tailcalled avatar
tailcalledpredicts NO

@ElliotDavies 😅 I don't really have any calculations or anything, I just make bets based on gut feelings.

SneakySly avatar
SneakySlybought Ṁ10 of NO

I love that these get included in Scott's writing now. <3