Fynsa
This week, the emergence of the Chinese technology company DeepSeek has caused quite a stir. The company has developed a generative artificial intelligence model that, although it has not necessarily surpassed traditional North American ones, would match their performance at a much lower cost.
How much lower? More or less 95% (!) lower. While the focus has been on the financial impact this had on US stock markets and indices, particularly on the chip company Nvidia, let us not lose sight of the fact that the possible adoption of these artificial intelligence technologies in the productivity of countries at a much lower cost could change the growth map for the coming years.
According to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), AI adoption across different economic sectors has been relatively homogeneous and transversal. However, it is certain that this will cause disruptions in the labour market: some jobs will probably become obsolete and while it is clear that opting for these technologies will improve growth levels, its effect on wages and inequality indices is not evident.
Likewise, there are geographic regions in which the use of artificial intelligence will be much more beneficial, given their productive matrix, the capabilities of their workers, the degree of development they have, etc. In this sense, the United States, the United Kingdom, Western Europe, among others, will lead in this aspect, finding that the possible benefits for Latin America would be the least of all the regions studied.
In this sense, although Chile is much better positioned than its peers in the region - even in emerging markets - we cannot ignore that many of the problems or difficulties encountered in the labor market or in the adoption of new technologies are shared with our neighbors. Therefore, focusing efforts on improving the conditions for implementing these technologies is essential .
A report by the National Evaluation and Productivity Commission (CNEP) has revealed that the growth of productivity over the last decade has only been marginally positive (0.4%-0.5%), with the estimate for 2024 being 0%. This is in contrast to the 2.2% seen at the beginning of 2000 or the 3.2% seen at the beginning of the 1990s. Thus, the already meager growth of recent times has been explained only by growth in employment or capital, but not by growth in productivity.
To put the scope of the above into perspective, CNEP researchers wrote a column asking what would have happened if productivity growth over the past 25 years had reached a conservative 1.5%.
Had this been the case, the country's GDP per capita would be 40% higher today. Additionally, the country's revenues would be 40% higher, which would allow it to better face challenges in education, health, pensions, among others. The fiscal position would be much more solid, which would allow access to better public and private financing conditions, in addition to being able to better face any international crisis.
Given the above, thinking about improving our productivity going forward is vital to improving the quality of life of Chileans and all those who live in our country .
While it may sound repetitive—and perhaps extremely theoretical—when I am asked what is necessary to grow more, my default answer is “improving our productivity”: education, infrastructure, regulation, legislation, but also adoption of new technologies .
Integrating generative AI and super algorithms into the current production matrix, but also into the one we want to aspire to, is an essential step and everything seems to indicate that it could be done at a much lower cost.
This could mark a turning point in the almost zero productivity growth that we have faced in recent years and thus be able to enjoy its benefits, something that we were unable to do during the past decade due to incompetence in both the public and private sectors.
It is time for us as a country to set goals for productivity growth, in order to better address other challenges, such as the recently approved pension reform, improvements in the health system, education and citizen security, among others.
