The Daily

Snapshot · The Daily

What A.I. Is Actually Doing to the Economy

Explore episode Jul 27, 2026

Where this was said

What We Actually Know: Huge Stakes, Subtle So Far

At 11:16 · chapter starts 10:00

Castleman synthesizes the murky evidence into two firm conclusions. First, the technology is developing and being adopted with remarkable speed, and there is growing confidence among economists — not just Silicon Valley boosters — that it will have a real impact on the economy, the labor force, and daily life. A statement signed by around 200 economists warned it could be an unprecedented transformation, larger than the Industrial Revolution but unfolding over a vastly shorter period. Second, and seemingly contradictorily, the effect so far is subtle — subtle enough that if AI were already wiping out huge swaths of jobs, we would see it in the data. The key to squaring these two observations lies in how technology actually gets absorbed into economies.

Technology
The J-Curve: Why AI Might Be Making Us Less Productive Right Now

What A.I. Is Actually Doing to the Economy · Jul 27, 2026 Technology

New technology always looks awkward before it looks transformative. Economists call it the J-curve: initial productivity drops as companies fumble with the new tool, followed by a sharp surge once they master it. We are almost certainly still in the trough — which means the big impact, positive or negative, is still ahead.

Similar snapshots