LO
Economist — tasks, one by one
The unit of analysis is the task, not the job title. Each one below carries its direction, whether the judgement rests on evidence or on platform inference, the reasoning, and what it does not establish.
Every task on this page#
Forecasting and nowcasting
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backedProducing forecasts of growth, inflation and other indicators, and estimating where the economy is now before official data arrive.
Machine learning is in use but has not taken over: Germany's central bank uses it to model inflation, interest rates and fiscal expenditure, while saying it is not always superior to traditional approaches and does not replace expert knowledge; a central bank survey finds nowcasting among the most advanced AI uses, but only about a quarter of use cases at full scale; and Federal Reserve staff found language models mix first releases with revisions and assume data that has not been released.
Central banks' own accounts and one staff study; they do not measure forecast accuracy in practice or economists' time.
Data work and modelling
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backedBuilding datasets, writing code, estimating models and checking that results hold up.
AI helps with code and checks but fails when left in charge: in a randomised study of 288 researchers reproducing published results, human teams succeeded 57 percentage points more often than teams that minimally guided an AI, matched AI-assisted teams, and found more major errors; the Federal Reserve says it uses AI to help staff with coding and research.
One experiment with 2024 models and one institution's statement; newer tools may do better.
Policy analysis and advice
Still human-led✓ Evidence-backedTurning analysis into judgements for decision-makers: briefings, scenarios and recommendations they will act on.
The decision stays with people: a Federal Reserve governor said the policy committee is not using AI in developing or setting policy, only to aid staff in writing, coding and research, and that many AI tools are not yet ready for production.
One central bank's statement; it does not show how briefings are drafted elsewhere.
Research and writing
Being augmented≈ Platform inferenceReviewing the literature, writing papers and reports, and presenting findings.
Inferred: central banks report using AI to help staff write and do research, and a central bank survey finds economic research among the areas where AI applications have advanced most; no record found measures how much writing has moved to AI.
Inferred from institutions' descriptions; no record measures research output or quality.