{"slug": "stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely", "title": "Stanford Economist Now Believes an AI Job Apocalypse Is Unlikely", "summary": "Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson and researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab have concluded that an AI-driven 'job apocalypse' is unlikely, despite impacts on entry-level jobs, according to the Washington Post. Brynjolfsson predicts demand for experienced workers like senior coders will remain high, and notes that nonfarm business productivity growth is running over 2 percent, the best sustained stretch since the late-1990s boom. He urges policy changes to make AI complement rather than replace workers, warning that current tax policy favors capital over labor.", "body_md": "\"There is still no sign of economy-wide job destruction,\" says economist Erik Brynjolfsson. Working with researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Brynjolfsson has determined an AI \"job apocalypse\" is unlikely, reports the Washington Post, \"even though it will likely impact entry-level jobs.\"\nAnd Brynjolfsson \"predicts that demand for experienced workers such as senior coders will still be high even if AI takes on more routine knowledge and coding work in the future.\"\nEarlier this month, Brynjolfsson and his colleagues at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab updated their widely publicized report, \"Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence,\" to reflect that they do not see widespread, economy-wide job displacement associated with AI...\nBrynjolfsson: What has moved on the upside is productivity. Nonfarm business productivity growth is running over 2 percent, the best sustained stretch since the late-1990s boom... The gains show up years after the investment, and they're starting to show up... By 2030, we will have enormously more capable AI, meaningfully faster productivity growth and an unemployment rate that looks unremarkable — somewhere in its historical range. That surprises people, but it's what the mechanism implies... [T]he technology is becoming much more powerful, and it's going to be even more powerful.\nSecondly, there are huge implications for business and the economy, including some increases in living standards, but also, potentially, job disruption. And then, thirdly, we must act now to address this gap. We can't just sit back and wait for the tsunami to hit us. And one of the things we can do is put in place institutions, policies and research to make the technology more complementary — using AI to complement people so it creates more jobs. A common misconception among business managers is AI, in order to be effective, has to reduce jobs. That's just not true. You can use AI to increase employment and productivity at the same time. It's kind of a win-win...\nRight now, tax policy is very skewed toward favoring capital versus labor — and, as a consequence, a lot of entrepreneurs and managers, they're basically being guided by the federal government to replace workers with machines. And I don't think that's necessarily what we'd like to have happen. From an economist's perspective, what you want to be doing is not mimicking and replacing things. You want to be extending and complementing — have humans do new things they never could have done before.\nHe acknowledges \"real, persistent and widening\" effects on entry-level jobs, with a labor market \"closing the on-ramp for people starting their careers... If companies don't hire people at the base of the pyramid, then they're not going to have those people later when they need them.\"\nOne he points out that one company is instead using AI to speed up its training of young employees.[Read more of this story](https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/22/211256/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed) at Slashdot.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely", "canonical_source": "https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/22/211256/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed", "published_at": "2026-08-23 16:34:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-23 16:42:44.473097+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Erik Brynjolfsson", "Stanford Digital Economy Lab", "Washington Post"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/stanford-economist-now-believes-an-ai-job-apocalypse-is-unlikely.jsonld"}}