AI and the Economy: is AI going to deliver? What happens if it doesn’t and what if it does?

AI and the Economy: is AI going to deliver? What happens if it doesn’t and what if it does?

The global economy is collectively investing close to a trillion dollars a year in AI and the infrastructure that supports it. Driving this investment is a belief that AI will transform economic activity across multiple sectors and reap huge profits as a result. This Ditchley conference asks how well supported that belief is and aims to explore the economic conditions and developments it implies. Given the concentration of global markets in AI and the consequences if the music stops, then this is not a trivial question but the impact may be even be more consequential if AI delivers as promised.

By now, we can be fairly confident that AI will deliver new value to citizens, companies and governments through scientific breakthroughs enabled, deeper analysis, extended automation and new forms of entertainment. Of course, there will also be downsides and risks and AI sceptics fear that the bad could outweigh the good, (including for some the potential extinction of humanity).

But whilst most accept that AI will be an incredibly powerful technology for better or worse, there is less consensus that AI will deliver productivity gains at a scale which returns on the massive investment will rely. Some economists think even small productivity gains difficult to realise, whilst others imagine automation of whole value chains and so a radical transformation of productivity and a shift from a labour economy to a capital dominated economy as a result.