00:00Joining us now, the executive director, co-founder of the Budget Lab at Yale University, one Martha Gimbel.
00:04Martha, great to speak with you once again.
00:06As you point out in this piece, in this forecast piece for Bloomberg Weekend,
00:10the hope here, artificial intelligence could help America innovate its way out of the demographic decline.
00:17Are you optimistic that's going to happen?
00:20Not really.
00:23Thanks for coming on, that'll end our segment.
00:26It's always great to see you all.
00:27You know, I think you're sometimes seeing this, you know, tendency from people to say, you know, particularly in tech,
00:35like, oh, well, the population is aging, that's an economic problem, but AI is coming, it's going to ride to
00:40the rescue, you know, it's going to be, it's going to save us all.
00:44And I think one of the things that I think about a lot is that, one, we haven't seen technological
00:49transition during a period of demographic decline before.
00:53We've only seen it in the context of exploding population growth.
00:56And also, you know, these transitions don't overlap with each other particularly well.
01:02So really what you're doing is throwing one transition on top of another transition and just likely compounding and making
01:09more difficult the effects of each of them.
01:10That's what I was going to ask.
01:11It seems like it could almost be a one-two punch if you've got AI coming in and taking jobs
01:15and aging, transitioning out of the labor market, what that does for disruptions and companies and how they cope with
01:20that.
01:21Exactly. And, you know, the jobs that AI is likely going to be helpful with, you know, whether it's increasing
01:27productivity or replacing workers, doesn't line up particularly well with the jobs where we have a lot of older workers
01:36or, frankly, the jobs where we have a lot of immigrants, right?
01:39So, you know, if you think about, for instance, flight attendants, they tend to be older, but that's also not
01:45a job where AI is likely going to make a huge difference.
01:49And so it's not like you can just slot the technology in.
01:53Martha, the last time we had you on, we were talking about Victorian fiction.
01:56We know you as a student of, a lover of history, and something we hear an awful lot in the
02:02context of the AI revolution, this AI era, is look at the Industrial Revolution.
02:06What a great analog to this.
02:08And I'm curious how good an analog you see that as and what that tells us perhaps of how this
02:12might unfold when it comes to U.S. demographics.
02:16I think it's really useful to look at the Industrial Revolution, but I think it's also important to highlight the
02:22places where it's different.
02:23And demographics really is one of those.
02:25So, for instance, from 1750 to 1814, the population of England doubled, and then you threw technological change on top
02:33of that.
02:34We are not facing a doubling of the population, right?
02:37That is a difficult demographic change in its own way.
02:39It likely made the Industrial Revolution more difficult for people to live through.
02:44But it means that we can't look at it for an exact parallel.
02:48Where can AI be useful?
02:50Because we talk about all the places where it's not useful.
02:53Do you see anywhere it could fill some of these gaps, solve some of these problems?
02:58Or is it just not at a place yet where when you look at demographic changes and people leaving the
03:02workforce, you find it particularly helpful?
03:04Or do we not know?
03:05I guess that's the other part.
03:07I think in so much in AI, people are looking for certainty.
03:10And per your point, we just don't know.
03:12I think also if you think about the consumer side of this, which I think is not talked about enough
03:16in the AI conversation, right?
03:18What do consumers want?
03:19Where is consumer demand going to increase?
03:23You're going to have more and more demand for health care and for jobs that look after people as the
03:30population ages.
03:32And so then you have a question like, can AI help with that?
03:34And do people want AI to help with that?
03:36Or do they want to age with humans around them and who are looking after them?
03:41And so I think we need to think a lot about what the consumer is looking for in this situation
03:44as well.
03:45That's where I wanted to go.
03:46And you point this out in the piece, that when you look at what AI can do, the way that
03:51it's being talked about is kind of a panacea for certain parts of the economy.
03:54There isn't a kind of tidy Venn diagram when it comes to this aging population.
03:58Talk a bit more about that.
04:00The way that AI stands to change or revolutionize the economy vis-a-vis an aging population.
04:05There are things that aging population needs and can do that perhaps AI isn't well equipped to or positioned to
04:10help with.
04:12Yeah, I mean, if you think about, for instance, Japan, they have had an aging population.
04:17They have experienced some amount of technological change while the population has been aging.
04:23And you have seen that they have moved towards more automation and some automation, right, that is aimed at helping
04:31them deal with their aging population.
04:33You know, AI nurses who will call to check in on people and make sure that they're doing okay.
04:39But I think one of the things that's really important to think about is, like, is that something that people
04:44want?
04:45You know, I will say my mother has already called me and said, please do not put me in a
04:48robot nursing home.
04:49I want a human nursing home.
04:53Which, mom, I promised.
04:54But, you know, I think you have to think about, like, one, what can AI do?
04:59And also, what do we want AI to do?
05:01And what are the things that are really going to increase our living standards and make things easier for everyone?
05:06As opposed to, where are the things where that, you know, sort of human touch is really important?
05:12And we want to maintain that and figure out ways to foster that as well.
05:15Got about 30 seconds left.
05:17Is there a place where you see that being useful for an aging population?
05:21I think about, we were talking earlier this week about new AI robots that can do laundry, that can do
05:27some of the caring things that can be expensive.
05:29And maybe we could bring down the cost on that and just focus at other places, focus at where it
05:34will actually work in the workplace.
05:36I think robots are a really important part of this.
05:38Elder care is incredibly physically demanding.
05:41And if you can help, you know, lift people out of bed, things like that, that's going to make a
05:45huge difference for the quality of care.
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