Economic Paradox with ChatGPT

In recent years, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to a new wave of technologies that are having a revolutionary impact changing the way people live and work. One of the most important hallmarks of AI is the development of chatbots – a language model that uses machine learning to generate text that interacts with humans, typically ChatGPT developed by the startup OpenAI. attract a large number of users.

Launched in November 2022, Chat GPT in just a short time has quickly caused a global fever with more than one million registered users after only one week of launch, and by the end of January 2023 has reached the milestone. more than 100 million users. Meanwhile, according to Sensor Tower’s statistics, it took Facebook nearly 2 years, the short video sharing platform TikTok took 9 months, Instagram took up to 2.5 years, and the Google Translate translation application took more than 6 years to reach the mark. 100 million users.

ChatGPT as well as the development of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to a new wave of technologies that are having a revolutionary impact changing the way people live and work. The biggest impact of artificial intelligence will be to help humans make discoveries that humans cannot make on their own. ChatGPT uses information that humans “have” to create information that is very difficult for humans to obtain, especially in the field of prediction. In terms of “economic”, how does ChatGPT impact?

Does ChatGPT “revolutionize the traditional economy”?

In a wide variety of work areas, ChatGPT can help expand the expertise and capabilities of non-experts, such as economists with little knowledge of complex machine learning tools, to a document search engine that can bring machine learning to economics.

To determine the specific contribution of AI to GDP, many factors need to be considered, including the growth rate of AI technology, investment and adoption of this technology in different industries, development of AI education and training system and government support policies.

Although there are no exhaustive studies on the economic contribution of AI, a report by Goldman Sachs published in April 2023, suggests that AI could increase global GDP by 7% over the next decade. Despite the hesitation and confusion from businesses, AI technology is predicted to generate nearly $16 trillion for the world economy by 2030.

That is also the reason many countries around the world are increasing their spending on this technology. Some economists also believe that if there is a policy to apply and develop AI technology, Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries will reap billions of dollars worth of benefits from artificial intelligence.

In Southeast Asia, AI technology is expected to contribute 1 trillion USD to the GDP of countries in the region by 2030. In which, AI is expected to contribute 92 billion USD to the GDP of the Philippines, for Indonesia, AI technology could add $366 billion to the country’s GDP over the next decade.

In recent years, AI has made significant contributions to the Vietnamese economy through sectors such as financial services, retail, manufacturing, and agriculture. If developed optimally, AI can contribute a large part to Vietnam’s GDP in the coming years, creating rapid and effective growth in many economic sectors.

However, behind those “money” numbers, artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT, is creating benefits that traditional economics has not taken into account, as well as information and data services. Wikipedia, email services like Gmail, digital maps like Google Maps, and video sharing platform TikTok. These products all have huge economic value, the services bring great benefits, but basically they are not counted in the national account system.

It is a paradox that ChatGPT is creating a lot of high-value services, but with almost no cost and especially with zero marginal cost. In the digital economy, data is increasingly becoming an important factor of production, but it is difficult to accurately measure the value of intangible assets beyond determining their existence.

Therefore, a revolutionary challenge for traditional economic models today is how to combine the “data” element with traditional factors, especially human capital. , human capital, to more fully and accurately assess the sources of growth and the contribution of each factor.

Can ChatGPT solve the problem “”Solow’s productivity paradox”?

Paul Krugman has observed that productivity is not everything, but in the long run it is almost everything to a country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time. While productivity growth is seen as the key to countries becoming richer and more prosperous, the process has unfortunately been dismal in the US and most advanced economies. (United Kingdom and Japan are examples) since the 1980s.

In 1987, Robert Solow, who won the Nobel Prize that year for explaining how innovation drives economic growth, famously said: “You can see the computer age everywhere, except in productivity statistics”. This “Solow Productivity Paradox” refers to the phenomenon that during the 1980s and 1990s, despite the rapid advancement of information technology, productivity growth in the United States was negligible.

Discussions and debates among economists about whether this paradox is true for AI shows that there are concerns that AI developers are making somewhat optimistic judgments and assessments of the technology. artificial intelligence technology. Two years ago, an explosion in productivity from AI and other digital technologies was predicted, and today it continues to be optimistic about the impact of new AI models. Much of this optimism comes from the belief that businesses can greatly benefit from using AI like ChatGPT to expand services and improve worker productivity.

With economies with the current speed of AI development, the majority of human resources will be knowledge workers and information workers. The question is, when will productivity gains be substantially improved? The “principle” answer so far is that it depends on whether we can find a way to use the latest and different technology in transforming businesses in the computer age of the past. or not.

Most economists now say patience is needed as current statistics still show that artificial intelligence and other digital technologies are having a surprisingly slow impact on economic growth. improve economic growth. The reason is that so far, companies have only used AI to do “slightly better” tasks.

However, with the hope that ChatGPT and other AI chatbots today are mainly about automating cognitive work, it is different from the requirements that require investment in equipment and infrastructure, so the increase in productivity is considered. expected to happen much faster than the previous information technology revolution. While the verdict on when productivity growth will happen with AI remains uncertain, some economists have predicted that more productivity growth could be seen by the end of 2024.

GS. Tran Tho Dat, Chairman of the Science and Training Council

National Economics University