Svmuu News, July 7: Pissarides, the 2010 Nobel laureate in Economics, warned that artificial intelligence will not usher Western economies back into an era of rapid productivity growth—an era that may be gone for good.Pissarides noted that as many as 40 percent of jobs in the United States and the United Kingdom are unlikely to be significantly affected by AI, citing sectors such as nursing and the hospitality industry. Technology companies and governments are pinning their hopes on AI to revive growth rates that have slowed significantly in recent decades.The weak performance of Western economies—particularly in Europe—has made policy trade-offs even more difficult. However, Pissarides noted that there is currently little evidence that AI can boost productivity, and he questioned claims by figures such as NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI founder Sam Altman that the technology will have a profound impact on employment.Although the technology may yield some productivity gains, “I am skeptical that we will see a repeat of the computer boom of the 1980s and 1990s,” Pissarides said.