Adair Turner Published September 24 2026. The writer is an economist and the former chair of the Financial Services Authority. AI experts hail the potential for super-rapid prosperity growth. Sir Demis Hassabis, founder of Deep Mind, foresees “an era of radical abundance, a kind of golden era”. Technology investor Marc Andreessen believes “absolutely stratospheric” productivity growth will make worries about inequality irrelevant. Anthropic’s economics team reports a median expectation of 8 per cent per annum GDP growth by 2030.

But the astounding technological advance of AI does not mean it necessarily accelerates growth in measured GDP or human welfare, and it is almost certain to exacerbate concerns about inequality. As societies get richer, an increasing share of economic activity is devoted to zero-sum competition. Ever more sophisticated AI-enabled cyber attacks require ever-increasing cyber defence expenditures with no benefit to end consumers. In legal services, “agentic flooding” is already overwhelming the British state and legal system with complaints and injunctions generated by AI.

Conversely, AI will deliver huge benefits that come almost for free. Multiple scientific breakthroughs promise accelerated progress in drug discovery. But once the drugs are off patent and manufactured in AI-enabled factories, profits and the contribution to GDP will collapse. Great benefits will be balanced by AI-induced harms, such as deepfakes and AI-enabled manipulation driving an explosion of online scams. As for inequality, AI seems likely to deliver increasing returns to high skill but poses a threat to workers of average skill.

The most important inherently short-supply item is housing in desirable locations. AI will not increase the abundance of attractive locations for housing. In a world of ever-increasing intelligence, land will increase in relative price. No amount of cheaper manufactured goods will offset the sense of restricted opportunity felt by average earners unable to afford housing in London, Paris, Seoul or Shanghai. AI can both increase human welfare and degrade it, but the balance will be determined by policy choices.