Does AI make us more productive? Yes, but...

Was listening to The Economics Podcast episode. It explores a seemingly obvious question: "is AI making us more productive?".

On the face of it, the answer is "surely yes!". And indeed, the podcast highlights one new study that confirms this.

The study notes though, that gains were mostly seen in the tech sector in particular. Which makes sense, as you'd imagine the tech sector is the closest to AI developments and is probably generally more agile (vs other sectors).

(I'd imagine other sectors will see more obvious gains in due time.)

But while we see overall macro gains, the podcast also highlighted another (small scale) study -- that demonstrates that at the micro level, companies/individuals shouldn't assume AI will necessarily make them more productive.

The study of 16 software developers found: while the developers felt AI made them more productive -- it actually made them less productive.

The podcasters discusses possible reasons for this -- including extra time needed to check AI's work, and possible "bottlenecks" in company processed (e.g. Step A becomes more productive, but Step B can't cope with the pace).

So yes, AI is making us more productive as a whole, but as individuals/companies don't take it for granted!