Gary Marcus spotlights essay arguing the AI bet crowds out investment, echoes Gordon's stagnation thesis
GaryMarcus · x · 2026-09-20
Gary Marcus shared Shalom Lappin's new Quillette essay, The AI Revolution Is Smaller Than the Last One, calling the generative AI bet's hidden opportunity cost "immense".
Key points:
- Drawing on Robert Gordon's work, the essay argues the AI revolution is narrower and slower than the digital/industrial revolutions, and is not remaking the world at that scale.
- Capital flowing into AI is crowding out other forms of investment, creating a substantial opportunity cost.
- Lappin frames the debate between techno-believers (utopian and apocalyptic optimists) and techno-sceptics, who cite the modest economic payoff of the 1990s dot-com era as a cautionary analogy.
- The piece also critiques Elon Musk's extreme techno-optimism in a July interview with The Economist's editor.
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