> Labor productivity was, in fact, slower in the first three years of our AI era than during the information technology boom that began in the mid 1990s.That's a bit of a misleading statement, as it uses inaccurate terminology and cherrypicked comparisons. The linked chart is about labor productivity growth in those time frames, and current labor productivity is actually growing faster than projected since early 2023: See first chart here (rest of the article also worth skimming): https://aleximas.substack.com/p/what-is-the-impact-of-ai-on-...
Some economists suggest it's because of the impact of AI. Here's a study from the St Louis Fed (not quite a tech bro-pilled source I'd assume): https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/nov/state-gen...
If I may summarize my takeaway from that article: even though 50%+ of Americans currently self-report (major caveat) using AI, they use it for only 6% of work hours. This is what the recent Google study [1] called "broad but shallow use." But that still leads to 2% of work hour savings, which is a whopping 30%+ productivity boost per hour of AI used. And even with this low level of adoption, we may already be seeing the impact on labor productivity at national-level aggregate statistics!
Interestingly, this is across industries. You can play with the charts here [2]. There are all kinds of caveats involved, but there are other studies that rhyme (like [1] and those listed on the substack above.) This is kind of astounding considering it's been less than 4 years since ChatGPT was released.
My concern is that the impact on jobs is only beginning because 6% adoption is a very low number. I fear the impact will happen gradually, as adoption inches up... and then suddenly.
[1] https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/un... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49020335)
[2] https://www.genaiadoptiontracker.com/