The boom in artificial-intelligence investment is undoubtedly boosting both the U.S. stock market and the broader economy right now. But what about the longer term? Will AI be a big net positive, delivering prosperity and solving the nation’s fiscal problems?

Most likely, I’m sorry to say, it’ll be closer to a wash.

To assess AI’s longer-run implications for the economic outlook, one must consider three questions:

How much will it lift productivity and growth?

How will it change the demand for labor and the equilibrium unemployment rate?

How will it affect interest rates?

On productivity, there’s no consensus. It’s still hard to say what kinds of work AI can handle and how quickly businesses can reconfigure their processes to take full advantage. The advent of electricity, for exampl

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