PROFITS ARE PRODUCTIVIITY:

[I]n a presentation at the Dallas Fed on Friday, Chad Syverson, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, said technological history has been one of lag-times between the launch of new technologies and their visibility in productivity numbers. In work he did with MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Daniel Rock, Syverson said advances in artificial intelligence in particular simply have not worked their way through the economy and into complementary products.

He cited analogies:

At least half of U.S. factories remained unelectrified until 1919, three decades after the invention of the first functional AC motor.

It wasn't until the 1980s, more than 25 years after the invention of the integrated circuit, that computers had penetrated U.S. businesses.

It took two decades for e-commerce to reach 10% penetration of retail.

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