From optimistic forecasts to desperate calls for technological rescue The First Quarter of the 21st Century Changed A Lot. The Next One Still Needs an AI Boost Debt, demographics and geopolitics aside, the key question is whether artificial intelligence can revolutionize productivity 25 years of wrong economic forecasts (and why AI could be the last hope) Debt, demographics and geopolitics aside, the key question is whether artificial intelligence can revolutionize productivity. Remember the good old days of 1999? When we thought Year 2000 would turn all our computers into expensive paperweights, and we were still impressed by phones that could play Snake? Those were simpler times, my friends. Times when financial experts were sitting around debating not if, but WHEN the US would pay off all its government debt. I'll pause here while you finish laughing. You see, back then, the Congressional Budget Office had this adorably optimistic prediction that by 2013, America would be d...