Paul Krugman on AI

Like previous leaps in technology, this will make the economy more productive but will also probably hurt some workers whose skills have been devalued. Although the term “Luddite” is often used to describe someone who is simply prejudiced against new technology, the original Luddites were skilled artisans who suffered real economic harm from the introduction of power looms and knitting frames.

But this time around, how large will these effects be? And how quickly will they come about? On the first question, the answer is that nobody really knows. Predictions about the economic impact of technology are notoriously unreliable. On the second, history suggests that large economic effects from A.I. will take longer to materialize than many people currently seem to expect.

…Large language models in their current form shouldn’t affect economic projections for next year and probably shouldn’t have a large effect on economic projections for the next decade. But the longer-run prospects for economic growth do look better now than they did before computers began doing such good imitations of people.

Here is the full NYT column, not a word on the Doomsters you will note.  Could it be that like most economists, Krugman has spent a lifetime studying how decentralized systems adjust?  Another factor (and this also is purely my speculation) may be that Krugman repeatedly has announced his fondness for “toy models” as a method for establishing economic hypotheses and trying to grasp their plausibility.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, the AGI doomsters don’t seem to do that at all, and despite repeated inquiries I haven’t heard of anything in the works.  If you want to convince Krugman, not to mention Garett Jones, at least start by giving him a toy model!