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Total US GDP is ~31 trillion, so that's only like 5%. I think it's conceivable that AI could result in ~5% of GDP in additional revenue. Not saying it's guarant
by zeroonetwothree 8mo ago
Total US GDP is ~31 trillion, so that's only like 5%. I think it's conceivable that AI could result in ~5% of GDP in additional revenue. Not saying it's guaranteed, but it's hardly an implausible figure. And of course it's even less considering global GDP.
- mykowebhn 8mo agoHave you ever seen US GDP go up 5% yearly for several years?
- matthewaveryusa 8mo agoThat’s the bet! last time we had that growth was for a few years during the dotcom, followed by a lost decade of growth in tech stocks
- dkasper 8mo agoChina did it. It’s not inconceivable.
- eatsyourtacos 8mo agoYeah but China actively works in the best interest of their entire population.
- brutalc 8mo agoHuh? No they don’t.
- direwolf20 8mo agoIn what way? Bring some substance instead of a vague rebuttal
- b00ty4breakfast 8mo agoThey're for those within the population that are willing to submit themselves to the whim of the state and whose prosperity in some way directly benefits the oligarchs that run the state. Certainly, as just a few examples, they are not for the well-being of the Uyghar population or pro-democracy activists or journalists investigating human rights violation or supporters of Tibetan independence.
- irishcoffee 8mo agoOh and Covid, don’t forget Covid.
- direwolf20 8mo agoThe population's best interest is to never get COVID
- irishcoffee 8mo ago> The population's best interest is to never get COVID I hope you understand that not everyone agrees with your opinion on what is best for the populations best interest.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- Retric 8mo agoChina’s GDP per capita fell for the first 40 years of CCP rule, making it way easier to have constant growth after that period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(1912%E2%80%931949)#/media/File:GDP_per_capita_development_in_China_1913_to_1950.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(191... Developed countries have slow growth because they need to invent the improvements not just copy what works from other countries.
- paulorlando 8mo agoThe chart you listed is for the years before the CCP won the civil war in 1949. But agreed that many of the problems overcome were also problems that were created after the war.
- Retric 8mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist-controlled_China_(1927%E2%80%931949) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist-controlled_China_(19... Starting at 1949 is overly generous IMO, but yes the purges that followed didn’t help.
- woooooo 8mo agoJapan controlled much more of China than the communists did before 1945. And having half your country occupied is bad for GDP. You made a mistake and believed some propaganda here.
- fatherwavelet 8mo agoIn 1979, median income in China was $100 USD a year. In 1979, median income in the US was $16,530 USD a year. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison.
- nradov 8mo agoDid China really do it though? We can clearly see that China has achieved huge economic growth since Deng Xiaoping took control. But the specific numbers can't be attempted to be believed. Communist Party officials at every level heavily manipulate the official economic data to meet their annual goals and no independent auditing is allowed.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- hyperbovine 8mo agoBy pulling ten million people a year from farms into factories and ploughing 40% of GDP into infrastructure and education. Sounds like a sound analogy to me.
- geysersam 8mo agoDoesn't have to go up. It's also fine if they replace other parts of the economy.
- johnvanommen 8mo agoexactly.
- mwwaters 8mo agoIn the expenditures for the economy making up GDP, not a lot of it screams “AI-able.” Page 9 here breaks down GDP on expenditure basis. https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/gdp3q25-updated.pdf https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/gdp3q25-upda... Given how much of the spending is hard goods and simply not AI-able (rent, most of housing new construction, most of other goods, most health care, much of other services), the replacement theory would require a massive displacement.
- crazygringo 8mo agoThe quote is about a one-time increase in growth of 5 percentage points. Not multiple years or forever. Or obviously it can be spread out, e.g. ~1% additional increase over 5 years.
- blks 8mo agoIt cannot be sustained with just one-time growth. Capital always has to grow, or it will decrease. If this bubble actually manages to deliver interest, this will lead to the bubble growing even larger, driving even more interest.
- lowbloodsugar 8mo agoYou're saying that the entire increase in US GDP goes into the pockets of like 5 companies.
- johnvanommen 8mo agoOr we’re seeing a world where corporations dwarf countries. Apple will be around in a hundred years. Will the USA?
- whattheheckheck 8mo agoIs like the transition from monarchies to nation states. By the 19th century, the rise of nation-states accelerated due to the spread of nationalism, the decline of feudal structures, and the unification of countries like Germany (1871) and Italy (1861). Centralized governments, uniform laws, national education systems, and a sense of collective identity became defining features. The French Revolution (1789) played a pivotal role by promoting citizenship, legal equality, and national sovereignty over dynastic rule Maybe in 2300 they'll say something similar about nationalism
- johnvanommen 8mo agoYes! The world is changing fast.
- nradov 8mo agoTech companies never last. Apple will miss a disruptive innovation or make a key strategic error causing them to lose their dominant spot. Look at the top tech companies 50 years ago: how are they doing today?
- bdangubic 8mo agoThere is exactly 0.00% chance Apple will be around in 50 years let alone 100.
- crazygringo 8mo agoYup. If you follow the links to the original JP Morgan quote, it's not crazy: > Big picture, to drive a 10% return on our modeled AI investments through 2030 would require ~$650 billion of annual revenue into perpetuity, which is an astonishingly large number. But for context, that equates to 58bp of global GDP, or $34.72/month from every current iPhone user...
- doodlebugging 8mo ago> or $34.72/month from every current iPhone user... As a current iPhone user, I'm not signing up for that especially if it is on top of the monthly cell service fee. I do realize though that you were trying to provide useful context.
- manwe150 8mo agoBut think about it this way: something simple like Slack charges $9/month/person and companies already pay that on many behalf. How hard would it be to imagine all those same companies (and lots more) would pay $30/month/employee for something something AI? Generating an extra $400 per year in value, per employee, isn't that much extra.
- zozbot234 8mo agoThat AI will have to be significantly preferable to the baseline of open models running on cheap third-party inference providers, or even on-prem. This is a bit of a challenge for the big proprietary firms.
- johnvanommen 8mo ago> the baseline of open models running on cheap third-party inference providers, or even on-prem. This is a bit of a challenge for the big proprietary firms. It’s not a challenge at all. To win, all you need is to starve your competitors of RAM. RAM is the lifeblood of AI, without RAM, AI doesn’t work.
- blks 8mo agoSo for that GDP gotta show growth of over 5% extra to other growth sources (so total yearly growth will be pretty high). I doubt this will materialise
- direwolf20 8mo agoIt's conceivable to us working in white collar knowledge jobs where our input and output is language. Will it also make 5% more homes built by a carpenter?
- bee_rider 8mo agoIt might provide cover to lay off more than 5% of us (the LLM can create a work-like text product that, as far as upper management can tell, is indistinguishable from the real thing!), then we will have to go find jobs swinging hammers to build houses. Well, somebody’s got to do it.
- stinkbeetle 8mo agoThe idea that companies need "cover" to perform layoffs (particularly in the US) doesn't make sense to me. Tech companies, all companies lay people off regularly. (To a first order approximation) if a worker is a net positive to a company then the company will want to keep them, and if they are not then the company will want to get rid of them. AI or no AI.
- maigret 8mo agoI’ve seen many essential people being laid off for stupid reasons, the gp reason above being part of the story for some. Finance runs the world not tech. Tech is only welcome when it helps finance else it is marginalized.
- direwolf20 8mo agoSeems like the cover might be for investors. If a company is shrinking but you don't want investors to know it's shrinking, you can say you're improving productivity with AI.
- stinkbeetle 8mo agoIf a company is shrinking wouldn't investors just see it was shrinking from their financial statements?
- turtlesdown11 8mo agoI love HN, you can't get stuff like this anywhere else, the DKE from posters here - you can't get it anywhere else!
- pier25 8mo agoIt's plausible 5-10 years from now. I believe the entire AI revenue in 2025 was like $50B. It's not going to 10x in a year or two.
- nativeit 8mo agoI’m sorry, but 5% of GDP is an absurd figure. You’re saying $1 out of every $20 that does anything in our economy should be on AI? That seems insane to me.
- eviks 8mo agoNo, GDP is not revenue, it's lower
- eviks 8mo agoIt is not a hardly implausible figure given the wide range of human economic activity, that's a common flaw in economic thinking when small percentages of huge numbers seem realistic ("my business plan is modest and will achieve a tiny 0.01% of the global market to become one of the biggest companies in the world, very plausible")