AI Links

Here are some of the AI-related writings that caught our attention this past month:

1. Reed Albergotti interviewed Bill Gates, whose views on AI have shifted dramatically in three years, from optimism to fears of economic catastrophe and bio-terrorism

2. Gates’ post, which can be found here, expresses three primary concerns—broad job displacement, increased ability for bad actors to cause widespread harm, and stunted childhood social and educational development

3. Seeking an AI analogy, Justin Wolfers writes about the Victorian bootmaking industry, which experienced technological disruption beginning around the 1850s, from the advent of the sewing machine. The good news is that total industry employment shifted, but didn’t shrink—the decline in artisanal boot-making jobs roughly equaled the increase in factory boot-making jobs

4. The (potential) bad news is that the shift in boot-making manufacturing and employment occurred over about a 50 year period. If AI brings much more rapid change, then productivity increases may be accompanied by much more pain in labor market transitions

5. Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen find that so far, AI hasn’t had broad-based employment effects, but employment for young people in AI-exposed occupations is 19% less than what it would have been if they were less exposed to AI. As the authors note, the question is whether reduced employment for subsets of 22-25 year olds is the canary in the coal mine

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