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Companies adopt AI, boost productivity

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Companies globally accelerated adoption of generative AI, reshaping tasks and boosting organizational productivity even as labor-market statistics lagged and investors punished software, data, legal and education firms.

Reposted by International Monetary Fund

22%

Reposted by Aric Rindfleisch

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by Justin Sandefur

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Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, Jutta Haider, Meredith Farkas

8%
zunguzungu.bsky.social
If "AI" was being built, used, and planned for in responsible ways--the way a civilization designed to enhance human thriving would do--then a lot more people would be enthusiastic about its potential. But the people in charge of defining what AI will be are the fucking worst short-term scumbags.
February 18, 2026 at 12:37 PM

Reposted by Diane Coyle

7%
Project Syndicate
AI Will Transform Business, Not Just Jobs

Debates about the impact of AI have centered on potential job losses, with far less attention paid to its implications for the business landscape. But corporate leaders should be thinking about how the technology can enhance their organizational capabilities and, in turn, increase economy-wide productivity.

AI Will Transform Business, Not Just Jobs
Reposts 0 11h

by James Goodwin

12%
jamesgoodwin.bsky.social
This is just trickle down theory, part infinity.

Letting rich people do whatever they want creates benefits for the rest of us *only incidentally and always at the margins*. Their prime directive isn't to make things better; it's to make money. Those two things are becoming increasingly decoupled.
katelynburns.com Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 3h
"AI will cure cancer"

No bro, it is fully on cancer's side
karlbode.com Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 3h
"why are you against progress" I yell confidently as my sloppily-implemented algorithms prematurely murder your grandma
February 18, 2026 at 6:35 PM

Reposted by Bessma Momani, Victor Asal

10%
karlbode.com
"Nearly 90% of firms said AI has had no impact on employment or productivity over the last three years, the research noted."
Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity—and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago | Fortune
In the 1980s, economist Robert Solow made an observation that reminded economists of today’s AI boom: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”
fortune.com
February 18, 2026 at 1:57 AM

Reposted by Stephen D. Murphy

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mollytaft.com
when big tech companies say that AI will save the planet, what kinds of AI are they actually talking about — and what's their proof? i took a look at some great new research from @ketanjoshi.co and talked to other experts about how a lot of this talk is probably bullshit:
Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn't Offer Much Proof
A new report finds that of 154 specific claims about how AI will benefit the climate, just a quarter cited academic research. A third included no evidence at all.
www.wired.com
February 18, 2026 at 3:19 PM

Reposted by Ann Bartow

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kattenbarge.bsky.social
A technology I’m really excited about is lab grown meat, and the right is actually using its state power to prevent this technology from coming to fruition, but there has been far less hand-wringing about that than the organic consumer rejection of AI
February 18, 2026 at 3:29 PM

by Andrew J. Weaver

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Reposted by Michael A. Clemens, Bruce Bradbury, Anastasia Salter

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emollick.bsky.social
Every few months, I write an updated, idiosyncratic guide on which AIs to use right now.

My new version has the most changes ever, since AI is no longer just about chatbots. To use AI you need to understand how to think about models, apps, and harnesses. open.substack.com/pub/oneusefu...
A Guide to Which AI to Use in the Agentic Era
It's not just chatbots anymore
open.substack.com
February 18, 2026 at 1:50 AM

by Paul Davies

23%
pauljdavies.bsky.social
TBH this is among the best essays I've read on AI and its effects. Definitely tends to the Pollyanna-ish, but I buy most of the arguments here. Our biggest problems might be more to do with material, physical constraints on meeting the elasticity of demand he talks about as much as anything else.
pauljdavies.bsky.social Paul J Davies @pauljdavies.bsky.social · 11h
What an excellent paragraph on the frictions that will slow AI.
open.substack.com/pub/davidoks...
Bottlenecks rule everything around me People frequently underrate how inefficient things are in practically any domain, and how frequently these inefficiencies are reducible to bottlenecks caused simply by humans being human. Laws and regulations are obvious bottlenecks. But so are company cultures, and tacit local knowledge, and personal rivalries, and professional norms, and office politics, and national politics, and ossified hierarchies, and bureaucratic rigidities, and the human preference to be with other humans, and the human preference to be with particular humans over others, and the human love of narrative and branding, and the fickle nature of human preferences and tastes, and the severely limited nature of human comprehension. And the biggest bottleneck is simply the human resistance to change: the fact that people don’t like shifting what they’re doing. All of these are immensely powerful. Production processes are governed by their least efficient inputs: the more efficient the most efficient inputs, the more important the least efficient inputs.
February 18, 2026 at 10:20 AM

Reposted by Branko Milanovic

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lseinequalities.bsky.social
What is the impact of technological change on wage inequality?

Our latest working paper presents an empirical framework that isolates the effects of new technologies such as automation and AI on the entire wage distribution.

@psalasr.bsky.social @raquelsebastian.bsky.social

🔗 buff.ly/qJB9DIG
February 18, 2026 at 10:00 AM

Reposted by Woodrow Hartzog, McKenzie Wark

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chrisdeleon.bsky.social
the AI junk that nobody - including the people making it - have enough real uses or profitable demand for is screwing up all the things that have real uses and decades of profitable demand

p.s. added alt text for the quoted post's screenshot into my alt text
Headline from PC Gamer, from the writer Tyler Wilde: Microsoft CEO warns that we must "do something useful" with AI or they'll lose "social permission" to burn electricity on it. Works should learn AI skills and companies should use it because it's a "cognitive amplifier," claims Satya Nadella. quoted post missing alt text, also a pc gamer screenshot: Many consumer electronics manufacturers 'will go bankrupt or exit product lines' by the end of 2026 due to the Al memory crisis, Phison CEO reportedly says By Jeremy Laird published yesterday This mess is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
February 17, 2026 at 9:56 PM

by Andrea Fronzetti Colladon

26%
andreafc.com
🌐🌱 AI + networks + sustainability = the future we need to build - together.
Thrilled to share our new edited book exploring how #ArtificialIntelligence and #NetworkScience can connect species and communities toward a more sustainable world. 🤝🌍
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

#AI #Sustainability 🧪
Artificial Intelligence and Networks for a Sustainable Future
This contributed volume examines the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on communication and collaboration.
link.springer.com
February 18, 2026 at 12:49 PM

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet

5%
zunguzungu.bsky.social
If all the billionaires betting this country's economic future on AI weren't the guy from the "I don't wanna cure cancer, I wanna turn people into dinosaurs" meme, then yeah, it'd be a lot easier to be interested in what is, in the abstract, kind of a cool technology
February 18, 2026 at 12:41 PM

Reposted by Ben Kaden, Julia M. Wright

1%
bencollins.bsky.social
AI is revolutionizing the world! A Playstation now costs $5,000 and this is the last phone you will ever own.
carlquintanilla.bsky.social Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d
“.. ‘many system vendors will go bankrupt or exit product lines due to a lack of memory. Mobile phone production will be reduced by 200-250 million units, and PC and TV production will be significantly reduced.’ Yikes.”

@pcgamer.com #DRAM
www.pcgamer.com/hardware/mem...
February 17, 2026 at 10:02 PM

by Arthur Spirling

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Reposted by Elliott Ash, Matt Grossmann

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Reposted by Nuria Oliver

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