Episode
AI and Jobs: What Data and History Say
- Podcast
- Thoughts on the Market
- Published
- May 1, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 300
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Summary
Our Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research Seth Carpenter discusses whether the economy can adapt fast enough to turn AI into a productivity boom rather than a labor market shock. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts in the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research. Today we're going to try to look past the hype and the anxiety around AI and ask what will be the effect on the labor market. It's Friday, May 1st at 10am in New York. Now, odds are that you've used AI to draft an email or summarize a document, maybe learn about a new topic, help plan a trip. The new technology is clearly lowering the cost of certain tasks. And I think the research shows that there are plenty and an increasing number of tasks that AI can do better than most humans. But that's not really the question. What I hear all the time is, ‘Well, if we can get the same amount of output with less labor, then surely millions of people will lose their job.’ I think the same logic also implies that we can just get a lot more output from the economy using all the labor that we have. And the difference between those two views really is at the heart of the debate. So far, I would say the data allow for some cautious optimism. Despite rapid advances in AI capability and evidence that adoption is spreading, the broad labor market indicators still show remarkably little disruption. Economic growth is holding in there. The unemployment rate is not rising rapidly. If anything, it's ticked down recently. Job openings are not soaring, and separations do not suggest that there's systematic weakness in AI exposed industries. Now, productivi…