It's a strange paradox of our times that we are repeatedly told that AI and automation will destroy jobs, whilst at the same time most of the western world is struggling with incredibly low levels of productivity growth. A recent study led by Stanford University suggests that the failure of AI investments to pull through into higher productivity numbers might be down to the economic model that underpins how companies get their data. It suggests that by not paying us for the data we freely give up to Google, Facebook et al, it tends to result in poor quality data that therefore makes it harder to derive useful insights from. It's an interesting angle, but whilst I can empathize entirely with the desire to re-align society so that the data we provide can be monetized, it's harder to see the financial inducement that can encourage us to share more accurate data on Facebook. An alternative argument is provided by a recent paper from Accenture.