Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman argues the public didn't sour on AI by accident. The same executives now soothing customers spent two years warning their product could erase half of entry-level white-collar work. Krugman calls it deliberate: scare Wall Street into financing, scare companies into adopting, then act surprised when voters revolt.

The thread's loudest counter says he has the motive backwards. The doom wasn't a marketing trick, a few argued: the executives meant it, and only hired PR to walk it back once the hatred set in.

Paul Krugman argues the 'European decline' narrative is largely a statistical illusion. IT is 8% of US value-added but nearly half its productivity growth, and those gains reach consumers worldwide as cheaper or free products, inflating measured US productivity without making European workers less productive.

One HN reader anchored it: YouTube adds huge output to US GDP and costs European users nothing. The thread split hard, with others dismissing Krugman over a long record of bad predictions.