Ben Todd on why AI hasn't boosted GDP yet: revenue 3x/year, acceleration a couple years out
connoraxiotes · x · 2026-09-10
Responding to why frontier models haven't meaningfully accelerated economic growth, 80,000 Hours founder Ben Todd lays out four points and says there's no big mystery:
- Diffusion is fast but not instant.
- Models remain jagged: lacking long-horizon agency, continual learning, physical manipulation, and skills in hard-to-verify domains — so they still can't do most jobs, though the fraction is rapidly growing.
- AI revenue starts from a tiny base (<0.1% of GDP), and much of the gains show up as consumer surplus rather than GDP.
- Everything stays on trend: revenue has grown 3x per year for 5+ years and may be accelerating, implying GDP acceleration a couple of years from now.
His takeaway: it may feel slow from the inside, but it's fast by historical standards.
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