Digital Event Horizon
A new study analyzing the Danish labor market from 2023 and 2024 found that generative AI models like ChatGPT have had almost no significant impact on overall wages or employment. Despite widespread adoption, AI chatbots created new job tasks for 8.4 percent of workers, offsetting potential time savings. The study challenges some narratives of immediate labor market transformation from generative AI and highlights the need for further research into the longer-term economic impact of these tools.
The study found no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation due to AI chatbots. AI chatbots created new job tasks for 8.4% of workers, offsetting potential time savings. Average time savings reported by users was just 2.8% of work hours (about an hour per week). Nine percent of productivity gains translated into higher earnings for workers.
In a recent study analyzing the Danish labor market from 2023 and 2024, researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Copenhagen shed light on the impact of generative AI models like ChatGPT on overall wages and employment. The findings, detailed in a working paper titled "Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects," provide an early, large-scale empirical look at AI's transformative potential.
The study focused specifically on the impact of AI chatbots across 11 occupations often considered vulnerable to automation, including accountants, software developers, and customer support specialists. The analysis covered data from 25,000 workers and 7,000 workplaces in Denmark. Despite finding widespread and often employer-encouraged adoption of these tools, the study concluded that "AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation" during the period studied.
The researchers investigated how company investment in AI affected worker adoption and how chatbots changed workplace processes. While corporate investment boosted AI tool adoption—saving time for 64 to 90 percent of users across studied occupations—the actual benefits were less substantial than expected. The study revealed that AI chatbots actually created new job tasks for 8.4 percent of workers, including some who did not use the tools themselves, offsetting potential time savings.
For example, many teachers now spend time detecting whether students use ChatGPT for homework, while other workers review AI output quality or attempt to craft effective prompts. The reported productivity benefits were modest in the study, with users reporting average time savings of just 2.8 percent of work hours (about an hour per week). This finding contradicts a randomized controlled trial published in February that found generative AI increased worker productivity by 15 percent on average.
Humlum suggested to The Register that the difference stems from other experiments focusing on tasks highly suited to AI, whereas most real-world jobs involve tasks AI cannot fully automate, and organizations are still learning how to integrate the tools effectively. Even where time was saved, the study estimates only 3 to 7 percent of those productivity gains translated into higher earnings for workers, raising questions about who benefits from the efficiency.
This conclusion, however, may face future scrutiny regarding its timing and scope. For example, data from 2023–2024 captures only an early phase of generative AI deployment, potentially missing lagging effects or the impact of more integrated generative AI uses beyond chatbots. Additionally, focusing on data from Denmark might overlook localized impacts already happening in other labor markets or specific fields like freelance creative work.
Even so, the Danish study provides a valuable but limited snapshot that challenges some narratives of immediate, widespread labor market transformation from generative AI. Given the rapid pace of AI development, the longer-term economic impact of generative AI remains an uncertain and debated question that will likely be the subject of many future research papers. In that sense, this early look is unlikely to be the final word on the transformative potential of AI.
Related Information:
https://www.digitaleventhorizon.com/articles/AIs-Transformative-Potential-A-Study-on-Time-Saved-vs-New-Work-Created-deh.shtml
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/05/time-saved-by-ai-offset-by-new-work-created-study-suggests/
Published: Thu May 1 20:37:07 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
