The problem isn’t that workers are avoiding generative AI chatbots - quite the contrary. But they simply aren’t yet equating to actual economic benefits.
“The adoption of these chatbots has been remarkably fast,” Humlum told The Register. “Most workers in the exposed occupations have now adopted these chatbots. Employers are also shifting gears and actively encouraging it. But then when we look at the economic outcomes, it really has not moved the needle.”
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The economists found for example that “AI chatbots have created new job tasks for 8.4 percent of workers, including some who do not use the tools themselves.”
In other words, AI is creating new work that cancels out some potential time savings from using AI in the first place.
“One very stark example that it’s close to home for me is there are a lot of teachers who now say they spend time trying to detect whether their students are using ChatGPT to cheat on their homework,” explained Humlum.
He also observed that a lot of workers now say they’re spending time reviewing the quality of AI output or writing prompts.
Have the economists been replaced by AI?
The real questions is if that would make their statements be closer or further from reality. Historically they have been pretty good at talking about things that had very little relationship with reality already.
First, assume everyone is perfectly rational.