1980s
Erik Brynjolfsson started his first AI company, an expert systems firm, in the late 1980s.
“the first AI company I started, I started back, believe it or not, in the late nineteen eighties.”
Topic
Erik Brynjolfsson
20 facts from 3 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2012
In 2012, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee rode in a Google self-driving car from Mountain View to San Francisco, after writing Race Against the Machine.
“Actually, it was 2012, right after we wrote Race Against the Machine, we rode from Mountain View up to San Francisco.”
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Eric Brynjolfsson and co-authors studied a staggered rollout of an AI chat assistant among customer support agents at a Fortune 500 firm.
“Eric Brynjolfsson and co-authors looked at a staggered rollout of AI voice chat assistants amongst customer service customer support agents in a Fortune 500 firm.”
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Customer support agents with access to the AI assistant resolved 15% more cases per hour.
“the customer support agents that had access to this AI technology, this this uh c AI systems, resolved 15% more cases per hour.”
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Eric Brynjolfsson and co-authors found a 16% employment reduction among US workers aged 20 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations.
“Eric Brynjolfsson and co-authors again look at US workers aged twenty to twenty-five, and they find 16% reduction in employment amongst for AI-exposed occupations.”
Undated
Economist Erik Brynjolfsson wrote a Financial Times editorial arguing that an AI-driven productivity takeoff has already arrived.
“Erik Brynjolfsson, who wrote an editorial in the Financial Times just a while back saying, the the AI productivity takeoff is already here.”
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Erik Brynjolfsson states that the accident rate of the self-driving cars he rides is 90% lower than that of human drivers.
“The accident rate is 90% lower than with humans.”
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Erik Brynjolfsson reports that his earlier research found investment in intangible complementary assets was about ten times larger than direct investment in computer technology.
“we found that the investments in those intangible assets are about ten times bigger than the direct investments in the computer technology.”
Undated
Erik Brynjolfsson says the youngest workers in the most AI-exposed quintile of occupations show an employment decline of about 16 to 17 percent relative to other occupations.
“now it's more like a sixteen to 17% employment decline relative to the other occupations”
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In the study, workers using AI mainly to automate work had falling employment, while those using it to augment and learn new skills had growing employment.
“The automating group had falling employment, and the augmenting group, the ones who were learning new skills, had growing employment.”
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Erik Brynjolfsson says that as AI made image reading cheaper and better, radiologists became more valuable for their other tasks and net radiologist employment grew.
“as reading images got cheaper and better because of AI, it actually increased the value of radiologists for doing those other tasks, and net employment grew for radiologists”
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Erik Brynjolfsson says at least half of goods and services in the economy have elastic demand, where small price drops produce large increases in quantity demanded.
“And at least half the goods and services in the economy are on that side of the curve.”
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Factories eventually redesigned around separate electric motors for each machine and laid out by the flow of materials, rather than clustering around one central steam engine motor, after which productivity rose sharply.
“Instead of being clustered around a central motor like a steam engine, they had separate motors for each piece of equipment, and they distributed the work and they laid out the arrangement based on the flow of materials.”
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Erik Brynjolfsson's company WorkHelix helps companies identify opportunities for value creation with AI.
“My company, WorkHelix, is very involved in showing companies how to identify the opportunities for value creation.”
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Erik Brynjolfsson recounts that a CFO told him she required every division to report headcount reduction from AI as its return on investment.
“that's why I'm demanding that every division tell me how much headcount reduction they're getting from AI”
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Erik Brynjolfsson calls the focus on using AI only to replace or imitate workers the 'Turing trap', after Alan Turing's imitation test.
“I call it the Turing trap because I think that it's a trap to only focus on using AI to replace or imitate workers.”
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Scaling laws for large language models mean that more data, compute and parameters produce predictable performance gains, which has driven training costs into the billions.
“there are these scaling laws for LLMs where as you make a model bigger, if you have a model have more data, more compute, more parameters, you get a predictable improvement in performance.”
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Erik Brynjolfsson has a long bet with economist Robert Gordon on how fast productivity will grow because of technology.
“I have a bet, a long bet on that with Bob Gordon, and I've written about, you know, how I expect productivity to grow”
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Erik Brynjolfsson says productivity growth is no faster than at the start of the AI revolution, perhaps slightly higher.
“productivity is not growing any faster than it was at the beginning of this AI revolution, maybe a smidge if you kind of squint”
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Erik Brynjolfsson spent over twenty-five years at MIT before moving to Stanford in Silicon Valley.
“I loved my time at MIT. I was there for over twenty five years, but now I'm out here in Silicon Valley”
Episodes