Daron Acemoglu has a number for everything. The MIT economist — who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2024 for his work on institutions and prosperity — estimates that roughly 0.55% in total factor productivity gains is what AI will actually deliver over the next decade, a fraction of Wall Street’s euphoric projections. He estimates only about 5% of tasks will be profitably automated in the near term, equivalent to a 1% or 1.5% increase in GDP.
And when asked how much of the current AI discourse he finds intellectually serious, he doesn’t hesitate: about 20%.
