Not everyone buys the idea that artificial intelligence is about to gut the workforce, and one of the world's most cited economists is making the opposite case, backed by the sheer cost of running the technology.

Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, argues that AI's promise of being cheap or free rests on a basic economic error.

Providing AI at scale demands enormous water, power and physical capital, unlike software, which can be copied and........

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