How to track the economic impact of public investments in AI

AI’s Social impact

Most national and state statistics systems are ill-equipped to track how investments in AI work their way through the economy because the companies and individuals who are driving the deployment of emerging AI tools are dispersed across a variety of conventional industrial sectors.

The existing statistical classification framework, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), was modified in 2022 to add a single category for AI activities: AI research and development laboratories.

Conventional economic accounting is ill-suited for a research-led field such as AI. At this early stage of the technology’s evolution, what constitutes AI-related employment is uncertain. Stanford University’s One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100), which aims to convene a study panel once every five years to analyse the effect of AI on society5, has noted that “AI can also be defined by what AI researchers do”… In other words, any attempt to describe the economy-wide impact of public investments in AI would involve identifying the people at the heart of these investments.