NAP: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work in 2024

In the year since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, AI has experienced a major turning point with the emergence and widespread public access to generative AI (especially large language models, LLMs). Compared to earlier AI systems, these LLMs have demonstrated major new capabilities, including the ability to have meaningful conversations on a variety of topics in dozens of languages, summarize key points discussed in large text documents, perform various problem-solving tasks, and write computer programs.

Artificial Intelligence and Productivity

Productivity growth—the growth in output per unit of input—is critical to raising long-term living standards. Advances in general-purpose technologies are key to improving productivity. Although AI is a general-purpose technology—that is, one that spreads, improves over time, and spawns complementary innovations—that offers significant productivity improvements in specific tasks and has the potential to impact every sector of the economy, its impact on overall productivity remains modest, likely reflecting its low adoption in the economy to date. Given AI’s broad applicability and the pace of its technological development, it is likely to have a significant impact on productivity over the next decade.

Artificial Intelligence and the Workforce

Despite widespread concerns about the impact of AI on jobs, the unemployment rate in the United States is very low compared to historical levels; except for the spike in unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment has been extremely low over the past few years. In addition, population and labor force growth rates in the United States and across the industrialized world are projected to slow. Against this backdrop of structurally strong labor demand and structural headwinds that impede increases in labor supply, it is difficult to predict whether the adoption of new AI will lead to a decline in overall labor demand, manifested in the form of fewer jobs (relative to the working-age population) or, more likely, lower pay for existing jobs. Furthermore, workplace adoption of the latest AI advances is still in its early stages, and despite recent improvements, measurement of AI’s impact remains limited, preventing a clear assessment of the current impact of AI on the workforce.

Artificial Intelligence and Education

Improvements in workforce education have played a key role in U.S. economic growth over the past 150 years, despite large socioeconomic disparities in access to high-quality education, which have led to rising income inequality over the past 50 years. Access to high-quality elementary and secondary education, as well as continuing education opportunities, could be important determinants of future U.S. economic growth.

Measurement

Given the high uncertainty in predicting near-term future technological advances in AI and their impact on the demand for various expertise and workers, it is imperative to improve real-time observation and tracking of AI technological advances, actual adoption, and its impact on the workforce, and to share this information with the workforce.

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