Real News Outfit Finds a Study Proving That AI Has No Impact in the Workplace
May 27, 2025
Just the dinobaby operating without Copilot or its ilk.
The “real news” outfit is the wonderful business magazine Fortune, now only $1 a month. Subscribe now!
The title of the write up catching my attention was “Study Looking at AI Chatbots in 7,000 Workplaces Finds ‘No Significant Impact on Earnings or Recorded Hours in Any Occupation.” Out of the blocks this story caused me to say to myself, “This is another you-can’t-fire-human-writers” proxy.”
Was I correct? Here are three snips, and I not only urge you to subscribe to Fortune but read the original article and form your own opinion. Another option is to feed it into an LLM which is able to include Web content and ask it to tell you about the story. If you are reading my essay, you know that a dinobaby plucks the examples, no smart software required, although as I creep toward 81, I probably should let a free AI do the thinking for me.
Here’s the first snip I captured:
Their [smart software or large language models] popularity has created and destroyed entire job descriptions and sent company valuations into the stratosphere—then back down to earth. And yet, one of the first studies to look at AI use in conjunction with employment data finds the technology’s effect on time and money to be negligible.
You thought you could destroy humans, you high technology snake oil peddlers (not the contraband Snake Oil popular in Hong Kong at this time). Think old-time carnival barkers.
Here’s the second snip about the sample:
focusing on occupations believed to be susceptible to disruption by AI
Okay, “believed” is the operative word. Who does the believing a University of Chicago assistant professor of economics (Yay, Adam Smith. Yay, yay, Friedrich Hayak) and a graduate student. Yep, a time honored method: A graduate student.
Now the third snip which presents the rock solid proof:
On average, users of AI at work had a time savings of 3%, the researchers found. Some saved more time, but didn’t see better pay, with just 3%-7% of productivity gains being passed on to paychecks. In other words, while they found no mass displacement of human workers, neither did they see transformed productivity or hefty raises for AI-wielding super workers.
Okay, not much payoff from time savings. Okay, not much of a financial reward for the users. Okay, nobody got fired. I thought it was hard to terminate workers in some European countries.
After reading the article, I like the penultimate paragraph’s reminder that outfits like Duolingo and Shopify have begun rethinking the use of chatbots. Translation: You cannot get rid of human writers and real journalists.
Net net: A temporary reprieve will not stop the push to shift from expensive humans who want health care and vacations. That’s the news.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2025
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