Eric Brignolffson, director of the Digital Economy 硏 at Stanford University, will give a keynote lecture at the World Knowledge Forum next month
“Artificial intelligence (AI) is past the deepest bottom of the ‘productivity J curve’. It’s at the beginning of a steep upward phase.”
Eric Brignolpson, director of Stanford University’s Digital Economy Research Institute, who is considered one of the best economists in the AI era, made the analysis in an interview with the Mail Business. He will participate as a keynote speaker at the World Knowledge Forum, which will be held from the 8th to the 10th of next month at the Jangchung Arena and Shilla Hotel in Seoul under the theme of “Design the Moment of Prometheus, the World of Coexistence Intelligence.”
Regarding the period of productivity explosion following the AI revolution, Director Brignolpson was confident that it was “close to an inflection point.” “Even if companies make large investments in intangible assets such as new technologies, processes, and new products, it takes a long time for the results to be reflected in statistics,” he said. “The productivity measured during this period underestimates actual technological progress.” This is because companies spend a lot of money on reorganization and employee retraining in the early stages of AI. In other words, after such an accumulation period of intangible assets, the productivity revolution will begin in earnest.
He cited △ productivity growth in AI-intensive industries with significant gaps from other industries △ companies confirm actual production and sales growth △ launching completely new products and services △ massive labor relocation as four signals indicating the passage of the low point. He added that the first and fourth signals in the U.S. are starting to be identified as data.
It analyzed that the period of productivity stagnation is also getting shorter than in the past. “The adjustment period, which took about 15 years when introducing the company-wide resource management (ERP) system, can be shortened to 3 to 5 years in the AI era,” he said. “However, only companies that have redesigned their work responsibilities and decision-making methods (according to the AI era).”
Professor Brignolpson played a leading role in issuing statements on the employment crisis caused by AI by more than 200 economists around the world, including 16 Nobel laureates in economics last month. “AI should not replace humans, but rather complement them, and act to lead to prosperity of the majority, not the few,” he urged.
Productivity J Curve = A pattern in which productivity initially declines or stagnates when new technologies are introduced, but productivity rises sharply when investment, organizational redesign, and learning accumulate.
