David Hémous discussion of: The simple macroeconomics of AI
David Hémous · Economic Policy · 1 Jan 2025
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Where this sits in the debate
- Will AI actually boost productivity and growth? · its finding goes against the claim (why studies differ)
Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model (AI-written).
Abstract
The spectacular development of large language models and the arrival of emblematic products such as ChatGPT have led to widespread speculation about Artificial Intelligence (AI)’s potential impact on productivity. In extreme cases, some predict that AI will soon reach a singularity point, leading either to a world of plenty or human extinction. More prosaically, Goldman Sachs (Hatzius 2023) forecasts a 7% increase in global gross domestic product (GDP) within 10 years. I asked ChatGPT itself to predict the effect of AI on total factor productivity (TFP) growth: ChatGPT 3.5 estimated that annual TFP growth would increase by 1 percentage point (pp) or more, while ChatGPT 4 predicted an increase of 0.5 pp to 2.5 pp.1 Against this background, Acemoglu (2025) provides a methodology to compute back-of-the-envelope estimates of AI’s impact on TFP, output and welfare over a medium-term horizon (10 years). Acemoglu’s estimates are an order of magnitude smaller: he argues that AI will increase TFP by at most 0.66% over 10 years (thus adding 0.066 pp to annual TFP growth).
About this publication
Leading field journal. A leading journal in economics or a neighbouring field (on the Tinbergen Institute’s A list or near the top of the RePEc ranking), or a top-rated computer-science venue.
Placed by: Leading field journal. How sources are ranked.
- Published
- 2025 (22 months ago)
- Citations
- 0 (OpenAlex)
0 citations recorded by OpenAlex — too few 2025 papers in this collection for a fair comparison.
□ added to this collection in 2026.
David Hémous signed the wemustactnow.ai letter · author affiliation matches seed institution university of zurich — part of why this paper is in the collection.
Related by theme, not necessarily by method or conclusion.
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arXiv · 2023
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