{"id":10133,"date":"2026-04-10T13:10:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/economist-ai-job-forecast\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:10:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:10:34","slug":"economist-ai-job-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/economist-ai-job-forecast\/","title":{"rendered":"Economists Starting to Admit They May Have Been Wrong About AI Never Replacing Human Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the most part, economists have been one of the few groups of professionals who\u2019ve roundly rejected the AI Kool-Aid. Consensus of the worst-case scenario<\/a> seemed to center on the idea that AI could upend the job market, but it wouldn\u2019t destroy it entirely. ATMs didn\u2019t eliminate bank tellers<\/a>, the parable went, meaning new technology isn\u2019t a guarantee that automation will actually change the whole face of an industry.<\/p>\n

As a sweeping economics paper<\/a> by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Forecasting Research Institute (FRI), and numerous top universities found, that attitude may be shifting. As time goes on, top economic experts are increasingly factoring extreme AI disruption into their models. Yet acknowledging a possibility and accepting its inevitable are two very different things \u2014 and as the complicated range of sentiments makes clear, an AI jobs apocalypse is still far from certain.<\/p>\n

The study is a tour-de-force of economic forecasting that surveyed 69 economists, 52 AI specialists, and 38 \u201csuperforecasters,\u201d a term for consistently accurate analysts who play the role of \u201cDune\u2019s\u201d Mentats<\/a> in the economics world. It found that all three groups expect \u201csignificant\u201d progress on AI in the years to come. Forebodingly, the groups all agreed that, as a rule, faster AI progress means lower employment rates overall.<\/p>\n

On average, economists assigned a 47 percent probability of \u201cmoderate\u201c<\/strong> AI progress by 2030, defined as systems that can operate semi-autonomous research labs, put out high-quality novels, and complete complex projects with oversight. They also assigned a 14 percent probability to a \u201crapid progress\u201d scenario, in which AI could complete years of research in a matter of days, generate \u201cGrammy\/Pulitzer-caliber media,\u201d and operate with the level of agency as a CEO.<\/p>\n

When it comes to AI replacing human jobs, the median economist surveyed expected a 1.6 percent decrease in the overall labor force participation rate (LFP) over the next five years. That number, which measures the entire working age population (unlike the more limited unemployment rate<\/a>) currently hovers at around 61.9 percent<\/a>. Under the rapid scenario, however, economists expect the LFP in the US to dip to 59.3 percent by 2030 \u2014 which would be the first time in over five decades the percentage falls below 60. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s enough conversation around this that we certainly should, as a country, be talking about what sorts of policies make sense in a world where the way employment and careers work now changes a lot in the next two to five years,\u201d Robert Seamans, an economist at New York University whose previous work<\/a> was cited in the study, told the New York Times<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the kicker, though. While economists are forecasting increasingly cynical outlooks for humanity, there\u2019s no consensus that we\u2019re barreling toward dystopia. <\/p>\n

There are plenty of periods in history, the researchers note, where market economies experienced trends similar to these worst-case AI scenarios, like the era before WWII, which was marked by severe economic inequality<\/a> across Europe and the US. As the paper ominously declares, the \u201cwealth inequality forecasts under the rapid scenario describe a US economy that would be substantially more unequal than today \u2014 but not unrecognizably so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether we get a routine economic disaster or something genuinely unprecedented depends on whether, and how fast, businesses can use AI to make profitable gains. Our track record<\/a> so far<\/a> suggests workers have some breathing room \u2014 but just how much, not even the experts can say for certain.<\/p>\n

More on AI automation:<\/strong> AI Expert Says It\u2019s Time to Stop Freaking Out About AI Taking Our Jobs<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Economists Starting to Admit They May Have Been Wrong About AI Never Replacing Human Jobs<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the most part, economists have been one of the few groups of professionals who\u2019ve roundly rejected the AI Kool-Aid. Consensus of the worst-case scenario seemed to center on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3841,3121,3842],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-ethics","category-finance","category-future-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}