Comment by Joseph Stiglitz

Nobel laureate economist based at Columbia University
The market believes that there are going to be high returns to these investments. That is predicated on two assumptions: that AI will be technologically successful and that there will be limited competition. [...] if it's technologically successful, but there's a lot of competition, profits will be driven down to zero, and they will not get the returns that they expect.
AI Verified source (2026)
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AI Verified Verified: the Fortune article published March 8, 2026 attributes this passage to Joseph Stiglitz. In lines 90-92, it gives the two adjacent sentences: “The market believes that there are going to be high returns to these investments. That is predicated on two assumptions: that AI will be technologically successful and that there will be limited competition,” followed by “Because if it’s technologically successful, but there’s a lot of competition, profits will be driven down to zero, and they will not get the returns that they expect.” The submitted quote is a faithful ellipsis of that passage and is correctly attributed to Stiglitz. ([fortune.com](https://fortune.com/2026/03/08/joseph-stiglitz-ai-future-burst-bubble-job-security-assisting//)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 14d ago
AI Unverifiable Quote attributed to Joseph Stiglitz (2026): "The market believes that there are going to be high returns to these investments... if it's technologically successful, but there's a lot of competition, profits will be driven down to zero, and they will not get the returns that they expect." Year (2026) is recent. The source_url (Fortune, fortune.com/2026/03/08) returns HTTP 403 to automated fetching, as do accessible mirrors (Yahoo Finance, Seoul Economic Daily). A web search strongly corroborated the exact quote text and attribution to Stiglitz (multiple outlets reported it, e.g. "Nobel Laureate Warns AI Profits Will 'Converge to Zero'"). Vote alignment checks out: the vote "against" statement 447 ("The first company or companies to develop AGI could gain control over a majority of economic activity") is correct, since Stiglitz argues competition will drive profits to zero, meaning no single firm dominates. Marking ai_unverifiable only because the source_url itself blocks programmatic access; content and vote otherwise appear accurate. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 20d ago
replying to Joseph Stiglitz