Bot the difference: AI’s absence in economic data
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
For all the promise of transformation that artificial intelligence offers, a close look at macroeconomic data shows little change. Sit tight. A brutal attack in Nigeria reveals how the security crisis is spreading ominously. And a tribute to Virginia Oliver, who cut an unusual figure on the lobster boat she skippered for decades.
Guests and host:
- Alex Domash, economics correspondent
- Ọrẹ Ogunbiyi, Africa correspondent
- Jon Fasman, senior culture correspondent
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Artificial intelligence, macroeconomics
- Nigeria, security, jihadism
- Virginia Oliver, Maine, lobsters
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:10.3 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:13.5 | I'm your host, Jason Palmer. |
| 0:15.3 | Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:23.6 | A a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. A horrific attack in Western Nigeria earlier this month |
| 0:27.6 | is just one sign of a troubling change. |
| 0:30.6 | Jihadist groups are splitting, leading to more violence between them, |
| 0:34.6 | and spreading ever closer to the country's urban centers, threatening violence for all. |
| 0:43.3 | And nobody ever gave Virginia Oliver any hassle for being a woman running a lobster boat. |
| 0:49.3 | No one dared. We look back on a career spent working Maine's waters for nearly a century. |
| 0:55.0 | But first... Your favorite economist and mine, John Maynard Keynes, made one wild assertion back in 1930, in his essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren. |
| 1:23.7 | He does a potted history of humanity, pointing out the incredible pace closer to his time |
| 1:29.3 | of what he keeps calling technical inventions and technical improvements. |
| 1:34.3 | They'd had huge impacts on workers' productivity. |
| 1:38.3 | He concludes that by 2030, we'd all be working 15-hour weeks. |
| 1:42.3 | I don't know about you, but four years out, and that still looks unlikely. |
| 1:48.0 | People love pointing out this folly of the great man, but let's take a broader lesson. |
| 1:53.1 | Big technical improvements, like, say, artificial intelligence, |
| 1:57.3 | take maybe a little longer than you might think to have big economic outcomes. |
| 2:03.0 | AI capabilities are certainly improving very fast, but the effect of AI on the economy, not so much. |
| 2:11.4 | Alex Domash is our economics correspondent. |
| 2:14.4 | AI may well lead to a productivity boom one day, but that productivity boom is not here yet. |
... |
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