When machine learning packs an economic punch | Economics - MIT News

Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office summarizes, Study: After eBay improved its translation software, international commerce increased sharply.

A study co-authored by an MIT economist shows that an improved, automated language-translation system significantly boosted commerce on eBay’s website.

A new study co-authored by an MIT economist shows that improved translation software can significantly boost international trade online — a notable case of machine learning having a clear impact on economic activity.

The research finds that after eBay improved its automatic translation program in 2014, commerce shot up by 10.9 percent among pairs of countries where people could use the new system.   

“That’s a striking number. To have it be so clear in such a short amount of time really says a lot about the power of this technology,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, an MIT economist and co-author of a new paper detailing the results...

Larger puzzle: The productivity issue
The genesis of the paper stems from an ongoing question about new technology and economic productivity. While many forms of artificial intelligence have been developed and expanded in the last couple of decades, the impact of AI, including things like machine-translation systems, has not been obvious in economics statistics.

“There’s definitely some amazing progress in the core technologies, including in things like natural language processing and translation,” Brynjolfsson says. “But what’s been lacking has been evidence of an economic impact, or business impact. So that’s a bit of a puzzle.”
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Source: MIT News