That would indeed be the right way to estimate total surplus. The problem is that total surplus is not obviously the right metric to worry about. For a use case like forecasting AI, for instance, it’s not particularly central.
No opinion because I haven’t thought about that use case. My comment was intended to answer “how do you actually measure an idealized version of a GDP growth curve”—minimizing strangeness which depends on the reference year—without considering its usefulness for forecasting AI.
That would indeed be the right way to estimate total surplus. The problem is that total surplus is not obviously the right metric to worry about. For a use case like forecasting AI, for instance, it’s not particularly central.
No opinion because I haven’t thought about that use case. My comment was intended to answer “how do you actually measure an idealized version of a GDP growth curve”—minimizing strangeness which depends on the reference year—without considering its usefulness for forecasting AI.