TURNING PROGNOSTICATIONS INTO HYPOTHESES.
We extract testable claims about AI’s impact from public sources, record timeframes, confidence levels, and optimism / pessimism. Based on this, we suggest the kinds of data that might help in testing these hypotheses. Read more
- The relationship between AI exposure and employment decline becomes statistically significant starting in 2024, meaning AI began meaningfully affecting entry-level hiring around 2024.Alex Imas · came due 2024
- The AI productivity take-off is now visible in US economic data, with US productivity growing roughly 2.7 percent in 2025, nearly double the 1.4 percent annual average of the past decade.Alex Imas · came due 2025
- We find no systematic increase in unemployment for highly exposed workers since late 2022.@AnthropicAI · due 2022-2026
- There is suggestive evidence that hiring of younger workers has slowed in exposed occupations since ChatGPT's release.@AnthropicAI · due 2022-2026
Optimistic
139
Pessimistic
171
Neutral
60
Unlike electricity or the steam engine, AI will eventually be able to build the structures that harness its own powers by itself.
OptimisticOptimisticDavid Oksdavidoks.blogbeyond 5 yearsconfidence moderate
The gap between AI's technological power and its economic impacts will probably close faster than previous gaps did with technologies like electricity or the steam engine.
OptimisticOptimisticDavid Oksdavidoks.blogwithin 1-5 yearsconfidence moderate
By the time we're dealing with the fully-automated organizations of the future, our current set of concerns will have been largely outmoded by new and quite foreign ones.
NeutralNeutralDavid Oksdavidoks.blogbeyond 5 yearsconfidence low
As long as AI is being slotted into human-shaped jobs rather than creating new paradigms, I expect disappointing productivity gains and relatively little real displacement.
NeutralNeutralDavid Oksdavidoks.blogimminentconfidence high
The transition to AI-driven workflows will replace mid-skill jobs with a thin stratum of high-skill jobs and a vast army of low-skill ones—job polarization.
PessimisticPessimisticDavid Oksdavidoks.blogconfidence high
The real productivity gains from AI—and the real threat of labor displacement—will come not from the 'drop-in remote worker,' but from something like the fully-automated firm.
PessimisticPessimisticDavid Oksdavidoks.blogbeyond 5 yearsconfidence high
Read something quotable about AI’s future? Send it in. We extract the testable claims, standardize them, and put them on the record.