AI can be powerful for years before its economic impact shows up
rickasaurus · x · 2026-07-25
Jason Crawford argues that AI’s real-world impact can remain small for a long time even if the technology is already very powerful. The post cites the Industrial Revolution: decades in, UK GDP per capita had only risen about 20%.
- The core point is diffusion is slow: transformative technologies take years or decades to spread through the economy.
- Ruxandra Teslo’s quoted remark says many “AGI-pilled” people can’t clearly explain why model capability and real-world outcomes are still so far apart.
- The attached chart reinforces the historical analogy by showing England’s GDP per capita rising gradually for a long stretch before accelerating later.
Related event: AI's Real-World Impact Lags Behind Its Capabilities(3 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Instinct launches agent-to-agent protocol to coordinate your plans, sparking 'friction is the point' backlash — itsOmSarraf_ · 2026-09-11
- We are witnessing the unreasonable effectiveness of inference-time scaling — sqcai · 2026-09-11
- Accelerationist fires back at AI doomers: beliefs aren't arguments — Dan_Jeffries1 · 2026-09-11
- "ChatGPT 6 Makes Workers with IQ Below 130 Useless": French AI Debate Sparks Backlash — mitchdeg · 2026-09-11
- 'AGI is here' vs reality: AI labs still ship some of the jankiest desktop apps ever — MilesCranmer · 2026-09-11
- Harry Collins: LLMs can't do frontier science because they can't invent new language — whoamisri · 2026-09-11