A look at why the oft-discussed predictions that AI will deliver double-digit GDP growth in advanced economies are extremely unlikely over the next 10-15 years
Ghosts of Electricity:NEW
Ghosts of Electricity
Context & Ripple Effects
The macro case for generative AI has swung between Goldman Sachs’ 2023 estimate of a 7% global-GDP increase over a decade and a 2026 report that the boom made essentially no contribution to US growth in 2025. This essay enters that gap by challenging projections that compress economy-wide gains into a far shorter period.
Its argument aligns with the view that AI adoption follows a J-curve familiar from earlier general-purpose technologies: complementary investment and organizational change precede broad productivity gains. The timing matters as ambitious data-center buildouts already face a documented power constraint.
First-order effects
The essay raises the evidentiary bar for economists and AI vendors presenting near-term, economy-wide growth forecasts, separating model scenarios from observed productivity gains.
Anthropic’s public economic scenarios become a focal point of the debate; commentators highlighted that their outcomes diverge substantially only after 2027.
Second-order effects
Big Tech’s data-center plans face tighter scrutiny over whether deployment and adoption can generate returns on the same timetable as capacity additions, especially amid the projected power shortfall for AI infrastructure.
AI buyers are pushed toward measuring task-level savings and implementation costs rather than treating top-line GDP forecasts as evidence of near-term ROI.
Third-order effects
If the J-curve framing holds, AI’s macroeconomic impact will depend less on model availability than on the slower diffusion of complementary capital, workflows, and new business activity.
The debate points to a split between localized labor-market disruption—already reported in India’s IT services and Kenya’s online writing work—and a delayed aggregate-productivity payoff.
The trend: AI economics is shifting from headline GDP projections toward a harder question: whether adoption, infrastructure, and organizational change can translate technical capability into broad productivity growth on a predictable timetable.
New essay on @alexolegimas's blog: Will AI Soon Deliver Double-Digit Growth? Probably not. Here is why. https://aleximas.substack.com/ ... 1. We outline the economics behind oft-discussed predictions that AI will soon deliver double-digit GDP growth in advanced economies. We list…
This is the perfect illustration for how Assumption 2 in our essay is violated: that which is automated, becomes cheap. That which is not, becomes expensive. https://aleximas.substack.com/ ...
Anthropic's Economics team is sharing a new model of how AI might affect economic growth, jobs, wages, and more by 2030. Explore the scenarios, tell us what you think will happen, and see how your answers compare to more than 10,000 Americans. https://www.anthropic.com/...
New post on the blog, featuring the excellent @ben_moll There's been tons of discourse on how AI will contribute to economic growth, with many people closest to the technology predicting double digit increases. Are these forecasts likely? Probably not. The blog goes through the e…
In Anthropic's extreme scenario, by 2030 GDP is 32% above a no-AI path and growth hits 15% a year. All their scenarios barely separate at all until after 2027. From that year, many worlds diverge.
Anthropic modeled the economic impact of AI and their extreme scenario is WILD: > unemployment: 11.9% > knowledge worker unemployment: 17.9% > knowledge worker wages: -11.5% > knowledge worker employment: -21.5% > GDP: +32.4% > labor's share of income: 60% → 45.2% so it basically…
Anthropic's own scenario model says that the AI bull case is economic growth at the magnitude of a 2x every 5 years The second and third order societal consequences of this are more pronounced than people might think
There is a nice visualization of how task bundles change with AI & some good interactive simulations of GDP growth under different assumptions in this. But missing are the right policy responses if we do get explosive GDP growth & large-scale white collar displacement together.
What will the economy look like in 2030? We've built a model that looks at the future by varying parameters relating to AI advancement and AI diffusion. Importantly, this is an interactive explorer where you can set the variables according to your assumptions about AI.
I commend Anthropic for this effort. They're showing us that social science research cannot wait for the publication cycle to be considered effective. …
Anthropic just released a new interactive blog about a possible economic future (jobs, wages, etc.). — I recommend playing with it here: https://lnkd.in/... …
THE question is how will the productivity gains be shared? If capital hordes all the gains while tons of people lose their jobs, there's going to be an uprising. — www.anthropic.com/institute/ ec...
Anthropic published a model of its own product's effect on the labor market. The extreme scenario has cognitive unemployment at 17.9% and labor's share of GDP falling from 60% to 45%.