In a recent report by PwC, sectors heavily reliant on artificial intelligence are witnessing a significant surge in productivity, offering hope for a broader economic upturn.
What Happened: The PwC report, released on Tuesday, highlighted a remarkable 4.3% increase in productivity in professional and financial services and information technology from 2018 to 2022, Reuters reported.
This growth is nearly five times faster than the 0.9% recorded across construction, manufacturing, retail, food, and transport sectors.
The report suggested that the rise of AI could potentially break the cycle of low productivity growth, leading to an overall boost in economic growth, wages, and living standards.
Carol Stubbings, the head of PwC Global Markets and Tax & Legal Services, noted that sectors with higher productivity also experienced faster growth in job ads for individuals with AI skills, indicating the role of AI in driving this increased productivity.
Stubbings also predicted that the trend of productivity growth driven by AI would accelerate as companies increasingly deploy generative AI, which can be used by non-AI specialists.
“The challenge with AI, and particularly generative AI, is the speed of the change,” Stubbings said.
Why It Matters: The PwC report’s findings align with the ongoing discussions around the impact of AI on the job market and the economy. Earlier this year, a MIT study suggested that the rate of job displacement by AI might be slower than anticipated, due to the high cost of replacing workers with AI systems.
However, concerns about AI’s potential to replace jobs have been widespread, with employees concealing their use of AI tools in the workplace for fear of being replaced.
On the other hand, AI experts like Geoffrey Hinton have been advocating for the implementation of a universal basic income to address the potential inequality arising from AI-induced job losses.
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