00:00In U.S. productivity, I always go with the Bureau of Labor Statistics measure of output per hour, X, non
00:06-farm business sector, right?
00:07And if you look at the data over 50 years, that chart was really interesting.
00:11The side-by-side of electricity and AI, over 50 years, the average quality reading is about 1.9%
00:17annual rate on productivity.
00:20But something's happened in the last 10 quarters where it's higher.
00:23Yes, you know, just under 3%, 2.7%.
00:27Do we really know what that is, and is it AI?
00:30We don't know.
00:32I mean, that's the part that makes it hard, is in productivity numbers, especially when they're happening in what I
00:38would think of as real-time,
00:39it's very challenging to assess or draw it back to exactly what the factors are that have shaped it.
00:45You know, in fact, people still don't agree on what happened in the 90s all the time, if you look
00:48at research.
00:49So it's just something to keep in mind.
00:51So then what you do, what any good economist or person, any industry person would do, is they'd say, well,
00:57what am I seeing?
00:58What am I seeing?
00:59And so right now, while we can't find it in the macro studies that would do very sophisticated empirical econometrics
01:07and ask the questions,
01:08how much of this is AI, we still can see that there's something going on there.
01:13The question isn't, is it happening?
01:15The question is, how long will it persist?
01:18And so clearly, something's happening in the economy.
01:22But if you make a series, to go back to your question about productivity, if you make a series of
01:27one-time adjustments,
01:29so say you automate a production line or you use AI to help in loan application process, you save money
01:35once.
01:36You don't save money forever.
01:38I mean, you keep saving that money, but you don't get growth out of that.
01:41You don't get productivity growth.
01:42You get one-time adjustments to the level of productivity of your employees or your process.
01:47So what we're looking for is a technology to give us consistently good changes in productivity so that all industries
01:57at scale get better.
01:59Industries figure out new ways to generate revenue, new ways to do product design, new ideas to come and shape
02:05the economy.
02:06That's the thing that has a sustained productivity growth part.
02:09So it's undeniable productivity growth has gone up.
02:12What's not as clear is how long will that last.
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