Nobel laureates warn AI’s limits for productivity and ethics

At the EUonAIR AI Summit in Zagreb, Nobel laureates economist Joel Mokyr and physicist John Martinis said AI is a powerful tool that can accelerate research, help offset looming labour shortages and bring advances in medicine and energy, but its impact depends on how people use it. Mokyr warned that “AI is not a threat; human folly is,” stressing that misuse could cause harm while appropriate use could improve lives.

Separately, Nobel‑winning economist Christopher Pisaridis, speaking to Bloomberg, argued that artificial intelligence will not revive the rapid productivity growth once seen in the 1980‑90s in the United States and the United Kingdom. He noted that up to 40 % of jobs in those economies are unlikely to be affected by AI and that expectations of a new “computer boom” are unrealistic.

Scientists across Europe also cautioned that AI‑driven decision‑making must remain under human oversight because current systems lack the ability to handle complex moral judgments and can generate misleading content that many users cannot distinguish from reality.