According to reports, Nobel laureate Christopher Pissarides, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has said that the labor market can quickly absorb artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots. Apparently, the comments helped calm fears that AI chatbots could bring about massive job losses.
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Pissarides, who specializes in the impact of automation on human work, said, “I’m very optimistic that AI chatbots can help us be more productive. We can get more happiness from our work and have more free time. As a result, we could easily implement a four-day workweek.”
AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, are seen as a potentially transformative technology. It could lead to productivity gains, but it also has the potential to replace hundreds of millions of white-collar jobs with bots.
Pissarides has previously investigated the impact of automation on employment and won a Nobel Prize in economics for his work in this area. Of course, Pissarides also acknowledges that the technology of AI chatbots has the potential to be misused in ways that could have some adverse effects. For example, it could be used for surveillance or privacy violations. But he also stressed that, if used properly, it could have a “huge impact” on productivity.
Pissarides said: “In terms of work, it can replace us to do a lot of repetitive things, leaving only the creative work to humans to solve. And, major companies will deploy it at a slower pace and in a step-by-step fashion, thus mitigating the pain of this transition for workers.”
There are also some concerns that technology could have a negative impact on society. For example, thousands of techies, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, recently issued an open letter calling for a moratorium on training artificial intelligence systems more powerful than GPT-4.
And Pissarides said in response: “If humans really want to work, there’s almost no limit to the number of jobs that can be created. So it’s going to take a long time for AI chatbots to really have an impact on human employment. During this time, people can make adjustments. During the adjustment process, all humans need to do is basically upgrade their skills.”
Pissarides’ comments come on the heels of a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs that said 300 million jobs worldwide are at risk of being replaced by “generative” artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT. Goldman Sachs economists also believe that this could have a transformative impact on productivity and GDP growth.
It is well known that productivity growth in developed economies has declined and GDP growth has slowed significantly since the financial crisis. According to Goldman Sachs economists, “The combination of substantial labor cost savings, new job creation, and increased productivity among non-displaced workers could help boost productivity and thus economic growth significantly. We expect that AI could ultimately lead to annual global GDP growth of 7 percent.”
