For the most part, economists have been one of the few groups of professionals who’ve roundly rejected the AI Kool-Aid. Consensus of the worst-case scenario seemed to center on the idea that AI could upend the job market, but it wouldn’t destroy it entirely. ATMs didn’t eliminate bank tellers, the parable went, meaning new technology isn’t a guarantee that automation will actually change the whole face of an industry.
As a sweeping economics paper by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Forecasting Research Institute (FRI), and numerous top universities found, that attitude may be shifting. As time goes on, top economic experts are increasingly factoring extreme AI disruption into their models. Yet acknowledging a possibility and accepting its inevitable are two very different things — and as the complicated range of sentiments makes clear, an AI jobs apocalypse is still far from certain.
The study is a tour-de-force of economic forecasting that surveyed 69 economists, 52 AI specialists, and 38 “superforecasters,” a term for consistently accurate analysts who play the role of “Dune’s” Mentats in the economics world. It found that all three groups expect “significant” progress on AI in the years to come. Forebodingly, the groups all agreed that, as a rule, faster AI progress means lower employment rates overall.
On average, economists assigned a 47 percent probability of “moderate“ AI progress by 2030, defined as systems that can operate semi-autonomous research labs, put out high-quality novels, and complete complex projects with oversight. They also assigned a 14 percent probability to a “rapid progress” scenario, in which AI could complete years of research in a matter of days, generate “Grammy/Pulitzer-caliber media,” and operate with the level of agency as a CEO.
When it comes to AI replacing human jobs, the median economist surveyed expected a 1.6 percent decrease in the overall labor force participation rate (LFP) over the next five years. That number, which measures the entire working age population (unlike the more limited unemployment rate) currently hovers at around 61.9 percent. Under the rapid scenario, however, economists expect the LFP in the US to dip to 59.3 percent by 2030 — which would be the first time in over five decades the percentage falls below 60.
“There’s enough conversation around this that we certainly should, as a country, be talking about what sorts of policies make sense in a world where the way employment and careers work now changes a lot in the next two to five years,” Robert Seamans, an economist at New York University whose previous work was cited in the study, told the New York Times.
Here’s the kicker, though. While economists are forecasting increasingly cynical outlooks for humanity, there’s no consensus that we’re barreling toward dystopia.
There are plenty of periods in history, the researchers note, where market economies experienced trends similar to these worst-case AI scenarios, like the era before WWII, which was marked by severe economic inequality across Europe and the US. As the paper ominously declares, the “wealth inequality forecasts under the rapid scenario describe a US economy that would be substantially more unequal than today — but not unrecognizably so.”
Whether we get a routine economic disaster or something genuinely unprecedented depends on whether, and how fast, businesses can use AI to make profitable gains. Our track record so far suggests workers have some breathing room — but just how much, not even the experts can say for certain.
More on AI automation: AI Expert Says It’s Time to Stop Freaking Out About AI Taking Our Jobs
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