‘tech economics’ tag
Why is automation/
Existing companies & processes are so hardwired to use humans as the basic building block that they must be reconceived to exploit new possibilities. Otherwise, you get absurdities like robotic process automation.
This ‘overhang’ also explains why startup ideas fail repeatedly before succeeding & crises can lead to abrupt increases in existing technologies: the “rising water” was held back by levees of local optimums.
This prodigious event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.
Nietzsche
See Also
- Gwern
-
Links
- “AI and Freelancers: Has the Inflection Point Arrived?”, Qiao et al 2024
- “Getting AI Datacenters in the UK: Why the UK Needs to Create Special Compute Zones; and How to Do It”, Wiseman et al 2024
- “The Impact of AI on the Workforce: Tasks versus Jobs?”, Bonney et al 2024
- “More to Lose: The Adverse Effect of High Performance Ranking on Employees’ Pre-Implementation Attitudes Toward the Integration of Powerful AI Aids”, SimanTov-Nachlieli 2024
- “McDonald’s Touchscreen Kiosks Were Feared As Job Killers. Instead, Something Surprising Happened”
- “[Yacht Laptops: More Dakka]”, 6510 2024
- “Philippines’ Call Centers Navigate AI Impact on Jobs”
- “AI Doesn’t Kill Jobs? Tell That to Freelancers: There’s Now Data to Back up What Freelancers Have Been Saying for Months”, Mims 2024
- “Election Workers Are Drowning in Records Requests. AI Chatbots Could Make It Worse: Experts Worry That Election Deniers Could Weaponize Chatbots to Overwhelm and Slow down Local Officials”, Elliott 2024
- “Generative AI and the Future of Work: A Reappraisal”, Frey & Osborne 2024
- “Answering the Call of Automation: How the Labor Market Adjusted to Mechanizing Telephone Operation”, Feigenbaum & Gross 2024
- “Who Is AI Replacing? The Impact of Generative AI on Online Freelancing Platforms”, Demirci et al 2024
- “Over 3 Decades, Tech Obliterated Media: My Front-Row Seat to a Slow-Moving Catastrophe”, Swisher 2024
- “Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI”, Grace et al 2024
- “Generative AI Is Already Widespread in the Public Sector”, Bright et al 2024
- “Artificial Intelligence in the Knowledge Economy”, Ide & Talamas 2023
- “AI and Jobs: Has the Inflection Point Arrived? Evidence from an Online Labor Platform”, Qiao et al 2023
- “Consulting Giants See AI Shaving Years Off the Path to Partner”, Anghel 2023
- “Computer Center Sabotage, 1968–1971: Luddism, Black Studies, and the Diversion of Technological Progress”, Larson 2023
- “Explosive Growth from AI Automation: A Review of the Arguments”, Erdil & Besiroglu 2023
- “"Generate" the Future of Work through AI: Empirical Evidence from Online Labor Markets”, Liu et al 2023
- “LLMs As Workers in Human-Computational Algorithms? Replicating Crowdsourcing Pipelines With LLMs”, Wu et al 2023
- “Online Appendices for ‘Structural Change and Internal Labor Migration: Evidence from the Great Depression’”, Boone & Wilse-Samson 2023
- “Structural Change and Internal Labor Migration: Evidence from the Great Depression”, Boone & Wilse-Samson 2023
- “Combining Human Expertise With Artificial Intelligence: Experimental Evidence from Radiology”, Agarwal et al 2023
- “People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers: AI Software and Voice Cloners Simulate Distracted Saps Willing to Stay on the Phone Forever—Or Until Callers Finally Give Up”, McMillan 2023
- “Appendix for Online Publication 'Do Robots Increase Wealth Dispersion?', Gomes Et Al 2023”, Gomes et al 2023
- “Do Robots Increase Wealth Dispersion?”, Gomes et al 2023
- “Today Was the First Day That I Could Definitively Say That GPT-4 Has Saved Me a Substantial Amount of Tedious Work”, Tao 2023
- “Generative AI at Work”, Brynjolfsson et al 2023
- “When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity”, Jia et al 2023
- “GPTs Are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models”, Eloundou et al 2023
- “The Characteristics and Geographic Distribution of Robot Hubs in US Manufacturing Establishments”, Brynjolfsson et al 2023
- “GPT-3 As Knowledge Worker: A Zero-Shot Evaluation of AI CPA Capabilities”, Bommarito et al 2023
- “On the Feasibility of Technosocialism”, Boettke & Candela 2023
- “Exposure to Automation Explains Religious Declines”, Jackson et al 2023
- “AI, Ageing and Brain-Work Productivity: Technological Change in Professional Japanese Chess”, Yamamura & Hayashi 2022
- “Will the AI Revolution Cause a Great Divergence?”, Alonso et al 2022
- “The Wild, Wonderful World of Estate Sales: The Estate-Sale Industry Is Fragile and Persistent in a Way That Doesn’t Square With the Story of the World As We Have Come to Expect It”, Feidelson 2022
- “Latency”, Munroe 2022
- “The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality”, Hémous & Olsen 2022
- “Robots and Firm Investment”, Benmelech & Zator 2022
- “What Is the Point of Computers? A Question for Pure Mathematicians”, Buzzard 2021
- “Hyperspecialization and Hyperscaling: A Resource-Based Theory of the Digital Firm”, Giustiziero et al 2021
- “Cognitive Performance in Remote Work: Evidence from Professional Chess”, Künn et al 2021
- “Technological Change and Obsolete Skills: Evidence from Men’s Professional Tennis”, Fillmore & Hall 2021
- “On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models”, Bommasani et al 2021
- “Does the Rise of Robotic Technology Make People Healthier?”, Gunadi & Ryu 2021
- “The ‘Sailing-Ship Effect’ As a Technological Principle”, Liso et al 2021
- “The Life Cycle of Businesses and Their Internal Organization”, Handwerker et al 2021
- “ChinAI #137: Year 3 of ChinAI: Reflections on the Newsworthiness of Machine Translation”, Ding 2021
- “Film Festivals Are Evolving for the Better: COVID-19 Is Making Big, Week-Long Gatherings of Cinephiles Complicated, If Not Impossible. What Emerges in Their Place Could Change the Cinema Landscape”, Watercutter 2021
- “The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies”, Brynjolfsson et al 2021
- “Why Working From Home Will Stick”, Barrero et al 2020
- “The 2020s Political Economy of Machine Translation”, Weber 2020
- “Industry Concentration and Information Technology”, Bessen 2020
- “Superexponential [Modeling the Human Trajectory]”, Roodman 2020
- “Modeling the Human Trajectory”, Roodman 2020
- “Transatlantic Technologies: The Role of ICT in the Evolution of US and European Productivity Growth”, Gordon & Sayed 2020
- “AI Helps Warehouse Robots Pick Up New Tricks: Backed by Machine Learning Luminaries, Covariant.ai’s Bots Can Handle Jobs Previously Needing a Human Touch”, Knight 2020
- “Testing the Automation Revolution Hypothesis”, Scholl & Hanson 2019
- “Automation As Colonization Wave (OB)”, Hanson 2019
- “‘What’s Wrong With The Way I Talk?’ The Effect Of Sound Motion Pictures On Actor Careers”, Hanssen 2019
- “Does Machine Translation Affect International Trade? Evidence from a Large Digital Platform”, Brynjolfsson et al 2019b
- “The Robot Revolution: Managerial and Employment Consequences for Firms”, Dixon et al 2019
- “Is an Army of Robots Marching on Chinese Jobs?”, Giuntella & Wang 2019
- “Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox: A Clash of Expectations and Statistics”, Brynjolfsson et al 2019c
- “‘Automation’ of Manufacturing in the Late 19th Century: The Hand and Machine Labor Study”, Atack et al 2019
- “Profiling the International Academic Ghost Writers Who Are Providing Low-Cost Essays and Assignments for the Contract Cheating Industry”, Lancaster 2018
- “Hyperbolic Growth”, Christiano 2017
- “The Price of Nails Since 1700: Even Simple Products Experienced Large Price Declines”, Sichel 2017
- “The Economic Impact of Moore’s Law: Evidence from When It Faltered”, Thompson 2017
- “No Great Technological Stagnation”, Ricón 2016
- “Before The Startup”, Graham 2014
- “Is US Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the 6 Headwinds”, Gordon 2012
- “Dispelling the Myth of Robotic Efficiency: Why Human Space Exploration Will Tell Us More about the Solar System Than Will Robotic Exploration Alone”, Crawford 2012
- “Hall’s Law: The 19th Century Prequel to Moore’s Law”, Rao 2012
- “Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle”, Bloom et al 2012b
- “Economic Growth Given Machine Intelligence”, Hanson 2009
- “InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union Did Not Build a Nationwide Computer Network”, Gerovitch 2008
- “Economics Of The Singularity: Stuffed into Skyscrapers by the Billion, Brainy Bugbots Will Be the Knowledge Workers of the Future”, Hanson 2008
- “The Economics of Has-Beens”, MacDonald & Weisbach 2004
- “Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence”, Brynjolfsson & Hitt 2003
- “The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration”, Autor et al 2003
- “Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market”, Acemoglu 2002
- “Long-Term Growth As A Sequence of Exponential Models”, Hanson 2000
- “Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance”, Brynjolfsson & Hitt 2000
- “Certificates and Computers: The Remaking of Wall Street, 1967–1971”, Wells 2000
- “Balancing Act: How to Capture Knowledge Without Killing It”, Brown & Duguid 2000
- “Beyond the Productivity Paradox”, Brynjolfsson & Hitt 1998
- “Office Productivity: the Impacts of Staffing, Intellectual Specialization and Technology”, Sassone 1996
- “Organizational Transformation As Punctuated Equilibrium: An Empirical Test”, Romanelli & Tushman 1994
- “Don’t Fire the Clerical Staff!”, Sassone 1992b
- “Survey Finds Low Office Productivity Linked to Staffing Imbalances”, Sassone 1992
- “Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big [Worse Is Better]”, Gabriel 1991
- “The Dynamo and the Computer: A Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox”, David 1990
- “Computer and Dynamo: The Modern Productivity Paradox In A Not-Too Distant Mirror”, David 1989
- “We’d Better Watch Out [Review of Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy, Cohen & Zysman 1987]”, Solow 1987
- “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World”, Simon 1971
- “Optimum Location in Spatial Competition”, Smithies 1941
- “Increasing Returns and Economic Progress”, Young 1928
- “Rise of the Robots Speeds Up in Pandemic With U.S. Labor Scarce”
- “What Explains the Evolution of Management Models over the past Two Centuries?”
- “The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine—First Draft”, Kelly 2025
- “Technology Transfer and Early Industrial Development: The Case of the Sino-Soviet Alliance”
- “Remote Work and the Future of Innovation”
- “Beware of the Robot Pharmacist”, Wachter 2025
- “The End of Starsky Robotics”
- “The Poor ROI of Autonomy. A Product Dive on How Most ROI Comes...”, Seltz-Axmacher 2025
- “The Puzzle of the Missing Robots”
- “Reflections on Palantir [After Leaving]”, Qureshi 2025
- “Overboard On Offshore Fears”
- “‘Rasmussen and Practical Drift: Drift towards Danger and the Normalization of Deviance’, 2017”
- “No Human Can Match This High-Speed Box-Unloading Robot Named After a Pickle”
- “An Army of Grain-Harvesting Robots Marches Across Russia”
- “Today’s Robotic Surgery Turns Surgical Trainees Into Spectators”
- “Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot, and What’s So Hard About Consumer Robotics”
- “Selling Software To Large Businesses”, McKenzie 2025
- “Winged Luddites: Aviators Are the Biggest Threat to Carrier Aviation”
- “The Robots Are Coming for Garment Workers”
- “Alibaba's Driverless Robots Just Made Their One Millionth E-Commerce Delivery”
- “The March of Robots Into Chinese Factories”
- “The U.S. Productivity Slowdown: an Economy-Wide and Industry-Level Analysis”
- “General Purpose Technologies and the Rise & Fall of Great Powers”, Ding 2025
- “Where Are The Robotic Bricklayers?”
- “Japan Is Both Obsessed With and Resistant to Robots”
- “Kai-Fu Lee on How Covid Spurs China’s Great Robotic Leap Forward”
- “Economists Are Revising Their Views on Robots and Jobs”
- “What Is It like to Work in an Ethiopian Factory?”
- “Is Software Eating the World?”
- “Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords”
- “The Age of Robot Farmers”
- “Paging Dr. Robot”
- “What Robots Can—And Can’t—Do for the Old and Lonely”
- “Invasion of the Robot Umpires”
- “Robotic Milkers and an Automated Greenhouse: Inside a High-Tech Small Farm”
- “The Robots Are Coming for Phil in Accounting”
- “‘We Don’t Need Another Michelangelo’: In Italy, It’s Robots’ Turn to Sculpt”
- “A New Generation of AI-Powered Robots Is Taking over Warehouses”
- “How Graze Mowing's Self-Driving Mower Is Disrupting the $100 Billion Commercial Landscaping Industry”
- “Tog’s Paradox [Jevons Paradox for Software Features]”
- “Turns Out the Dot-Com Bust’s Worst Flops Were Actually Fantastic Ideas”
- “Inside the Amazon Warehouse Where Humans and Machines Become One”
- “Robots Are Fueling the Quiet Ascendance of the Electric Motor”
- “As Robots Fill the Workplace, They Must Learn to Get Along”
- “These Robots Follow You to Learn Where to Go”
- “Robots Invade the Construction Site”
- “You Can Now Buy Spot the Robot Dog—If You’ve Got $74,500”
- “The Robots Are Coming for Garment Workers. That’s Good for the U.S., Bad for Poor Countries: Automation Is Reaching into Trades That Once Seemed Immune, Transforming Sweatshops in Places like Bangladesh and Bringing Production back to America”
- “Automation”
- Sort By Magic
- Wikipedia
- Miscellaneous
- Bibliography
Gwern
“Evolution As Backstop for Reinforcement Learning”, Gwern 2018
“ARPA and SCI: Surfing AI”, Gwern 2018
“Complexity No Bar to AI”, Gwern 2014
“The Hyperbolic Time Chamber & Brain Emulation”, Gwern 2012
“Why Tool AIs Want to Be Agent AIs”, Gwern 2016
Links
“AI and Freelancers: Has the Inflection Point Arrived?”, Qiao et al 2024
“Getting AI Datacenters in the UK: Why the UK Needs to Create Special Compute Zones; and How to Do It”, Wiseman et al 2024
“The Impact of AI on the Workforce: Tasks versus Jobs?”, Bonney et al 2024
“More to Lose: The Adverse Effect of High Performance Ranking on Employees’ Pre-Implementation Attitudes Toward the Integration of Powerful AI Aids”, SimanTov-Nachlieli 2024
“McDonald’s Touchscreen Kiosks Were Feared As Job Killers. Instead, Something Surprising Happened”
McDonald’s touchscreen kiosks were feared as job killers. Instead, something surprising happened:
“[Yacht Laptops: More Dakka]”, 6510 2024
“Philippines’ Call Centers Navigate AI Impact on Jobs”
“AI Doesn’t Kill Jobs? Tell That to Freelancers: There’s Now Data to Back up What Freelancers Have Been Saying for Months”, Mims 2024
“Election Workers Are Drowning in Records Requests. AI Chatbots Could Make It Worse: Experts Worry That Election Deniers Could Weaponize Chatbots to Overwhelm and Slow down Local Officials”, Elliott 2024
“Generative AI and the Future of Work: A Reappraisal”, Frey & Osborne 2024
Generative AI and the Future of Work: A Reappraisal:
“Answering the Call of Automation: How the Labor Market Adjusted to Mechanizing Telephone Operation”, Feigenbaum & Gross 2024
Answering the Call of Automation: How the Labor Market Adjusted to Mechanizing Telephone Operation
“Who Is AI Replacing? The Impact of Generative AI on Online Freelancing Platforms”, Demirci et al 2024
Who Is AI Replacing? The Impact of Generative AI on Online Freelancing Platforms
“Over 3 Decades, Tech Obliterated Media: My Front-Row Seat to a Slow-Moving Catastrophe”, Swisher 2024
Over 3 Decades, Tech Obliterated Media: My front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe:
“Thousands of AI Authors on the Future of AI”, Grace et al 2024
“Generative AI Is Already Widespread in the Public Sector”, Bright et al 2024
“Artificial Intelligence in the Knowledge Economy”, Ide & Talamas 2023
“AI and Jobs: Has the Inflection Point Arrived? Evidence from an Online Labor Platform”, Qiao et al 2023
AI and Jobs: Has the Inflection Point Arrived? Evidence from an Online Labor Platform
“Consulting Giants See AI Shaving Years Off the Path to Partner”, Anghel 2023
Consulting Giants See AI Shaving Years Off the Path to Partner
“Computer Center Sabotage, 1968–1971: Luddism, Black Studies, and the Diversion of Technological Progress”, Larson 2023
“Explosive Growth from AI Automation: A Review of the Arguments”, Erdil & Besiroglu 2023
Explosive growth from AI automation: A review of the arguments
“"Generate" the Future of Work through AI: Empirical Evidence from Online Labor Markets”, Liu et al 2023
"Generate" the Future of Work through AI: Empirical Evidence from Online Labor Markets
“LLMs As Workers in Human-Computational Algorithms? Replicating Crowdsourcing Pipelines With LLMs”, Wu et al 2023
LLMs as Workers in Human-Computational Algorithms? Replicating Crowdsourcing Pipelines with LLMs
“Online Appendices for ‘Structural Change and Internal Labor Migration: Evidence from the Great Depression’”, Boone & Wilse-Samson 2023
“Structural Change and Internal Labor Migration: Evidence from the Great Depression”, Boone & Wilse-Samson 2023
Structural Change and Internal Labor Migration: Evidence from the Great Depression
“Combining Human Expertise With Artificial Intelligence: Experimental Evidence from Radiology”, Agarwal et al 2023
Combining Human Expertise with Artificial Intelligence: Experimental Evidence from Radiology
“People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers: AI Software and Voice Cloners Simulate Distracted Saps Willing to Stay on the Phone Forever—Or Until Callers Finally Give Up”, McMillan 2023
“Appendix for Online Publication 'Do Robots Increase Wealth Dispersion?', Gomes Et Al 2023”, Gomes et al 2023
Appendix for Online Publication 'Do Robots Increase Wealth Dispersion?', Gomes et al 2023
“Do Robots Increase Wealth Dispersion?”, Gomes et al 2023
“Today Was the First Day That I Could Definitively Say That GPT-4 Has Saved Me a Substantial Amount of Tedious Work”, Tao 2023
“Generative AI at Work”, Brynjolfsson et al 2023
“When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity”, Jia et al 2023
When and How Artificial Intelligence Augments Employee Creativity
“GPTs Are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models”, Eloundou et al 2023
GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models
“The Characteristics and Geographic Distribution of Robot Hubs in US Manufacturing Establishments”, Brynjolfsson et al 2023
The Characteristics and Geographic Distribution of Robot Hubs in US Manufacturing Establishments
“GPT-3 As Knowledge Worker: A Zero-Shot Evaluation of AI CPA Capabilities”, Bommarito et al 2023
GPT-3 as Knowledge Worker: A Zero-Shot Evaluation of AI CPA Capabilities
“On the Feasibility of Technosocialism”, Boettke & Candela 2023
“Exposure to Automation Explains Religious Declines”, Jackson et al 2023
“AI, Ageing and Brain-Work Productivity: Technological Change in Professional Japanese Chess”, Yamamura & Hayashi 2022
AI, Ageing and Brain-Work Productivity: Technological Change in Professional Japanese Chess
“Will the AI Revolution Cause a Great Divergence?”, Alonso et al 2022
“The Wild, Wonderful World of Estate Sales: The Estate-Sale Industry Is Fragile and Persistent in a Way That Doesn’t Square With the Story of the World As We Have Come to Expect It”, Feidelson 2022
“Latency”, Munroe 2022
“The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality”, Hémous & Olsen 2022
The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality
“Robots and Firm Investment”, Benmelech & Zator 2022
“What Is the Point of Computers? A Question for Pure Mathematicians”, Buzzard 2021
What is the point of computers? A question for pure mathematicians
“Hyperspecialization and Hyperscaling: A Resource-Based Theory of the Digital Firm”, Giustiziero et al 2021
Hyperspecialization and hyperscaling: A resource-based theory of the digital firm
“Cognitive Performance in Remote Work: Evidence from Professional Chess”, Künn et al 2021
Cognitive Performance in Remote Work: Evidence from Professional Chess
“Technological Change and Obsolete Skills: Evidence from Men’s Professional Tennis”, Fillmore & Hall 2021
Technological change and obsolete skills: Evidence from men’s professional tennis
“On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models”, Bommasani et al 2021
“Does the Rise of Robotic Technology Make People Healthier?”, Gunadi & Ryu 2021
“The ‘Sailing-Ship Effect’ As a Technological Principle”, Liso et al 2021
“The Life Cycle of Businesses and Their Internal Organization”, Handwerker et al 2021
The Life Cycle of Businesses and their Internal Organization
“ChinAI #137: Year 3 of ChinAI: Reflections on the Newsworthiness of Machine Translation”, Ding 2021
ChinAI #137: Year 3 of ChinAI: Reflections on the newsworthiness of machine translation
“Film Festivals Are Evolving for the Better: COVID-19 Is Making Big, Week-Long Gatherings of Cinephiles Complicated, If Not Impossible. What Emerges in Their Place Could Change the Cinema Landscape”, Watercutter 2021
“The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies”, Brynjolfsson et al 2021
The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies
“Why Working From Home Will Stick”, Barrero et al 2020
“The 2020s Political Economy of Machine Translation”, Weber 2020
“Industry Concentration and Information Technology”, Bessen 2020
“Superexponential [Modeling the Human Trajectory]”, Roodman 2020
“Modeling the Human Trajectory”, Roodman 2020
“Transatlantic Technologies: The Role of ICT in the Evolution of US and European Productivity Growth”, Gordon & Sayed 2020
Transatlantic Technologies: The Role of ICT in the Evolution of US and European Productivity Growth
“AI Helps Warehouse Robots Pick Up New Tricks: Backed by Machine Learning Luminaries, Covariant.ai’s Bots Can Handle Jobs Previously Needing a Human Touch”, Knight 2020
“Testing the Automation Revolution Hypothesis”, Scholl & Hanson 2019
“Automation As Colonization Wave (OB)”, Hanson 2019
“‘What’s Wrong With The Way I Talk?’ The Effect Of Sound Motion Pictures On Actor Careers”, Hanssen 2019
‘What’s Wrong With The Way I Talk?’ The Effect Of Sound Motion Pictures On Actor Careers
“Does Machine Translation Affect International Trade? Evidence from a Large Digital Platform”, Brynjolfsson et al 2019b
Does Machine Translation Affect International Trade? Evidence from a Large Digital Platform
“The Robot Revolution: Managerial and Employment Consequences for Firms”, Dixon et al 2019
The Robot Revolution: Managerial and Employment Consequences for Firms
“Is an Army of Robots Marching on Chinese Jobs?”, Giuntella & Wang 2019
“Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox: A Clash of Expectations and Statistics”, Brynjolfsson et al 2019c
Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox: A Clash of Expectations and Statistics
“‘Automation’ of Manufacturing in the Late 19th Century: The Hand and Machine Labor Study”, Atack et al 2019
‘Automation’ of Manufacturing in the Late 19th Century: The Hand and Machine Labor Study
“Profiling the International Academic Ghost Writers Who Are Providing Low-Cost Essays and Assignments for the Contract Cheating Industry”, Lancaster 2018
“Hyperbolic Growth”, Christiano 2017
“The Price of Nails Since 1700: Even Simple Products Experienced Large Price Declines”, Sichel 2017
The Price of Nails since 1700: Even Simple Products Experienced Large Price Declines
“The Economic Impact of Moore’s Law: Evidence from When It Faltered”, Thompson 2017
The Economic Impact of Moore’s Law: Evidence from When it Faltered
“No Great Technological Stagnation”, Ricón 2016
No Great Technological Stagnation:
“Before The Startup”, Graham 2014
“Is US Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the 6 Headwinds”, Gordon 2012
Is US Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the 6 Headwinds
“Dispelling the Myth of Robotic Efficiency: Why Human Space Exploration Will Tell Us More about the Solar System Than Will Robotic Exploration Alone”, Crawford 2012
“Hall’s Law: The 19th Century Prequel to Moore’s Law”, Rao 2012
“Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle”, Bloom et al 2012b
Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle
“Economic Growth Given Machine Intelligence”, Hanson 2009
Economic Growth Given Machine Intelligence:
“InterNyet: Why the Soviet Union Did Not Build a Nationwide Computer Network”, Gerovitch 2008
InterNyet: why the Soviet Union did not build a nationwide computer network
“Economics Of The Singularity: Stuffed into Skyscrapers by the Billion, Brainy Bugbots Will Be the Knowledge Workers of the Future”, Hanson 2008
“The Economics of Has-Beens”, MacDonald & Weisbach 2004
“Computing Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence”, Brynjolfsson & Hitt 2003
“The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration”, Autor et al 2003
The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration
“Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market”, Acemoglu 2002
“Long-Term Growth As A Sequence of Exponential Models”, Hanson 2000
“Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance”, Brynjolfsson & Hitt 2000
Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance
“Certificates and Computers: The Remaking of Wall Street, 1967–1971”, Wells 2000
Certificates and Computers: The Remaking of Wall Street, 1967–1971
“Balancing Act: How to Capture Knowledge Without Killing It”, Brown & Duguid 2000
“Beyond the Productivity Paradox”, Brynjolfsson & Hitt 1998
“Office Productivity: the Impacts of Staffing, Intellectual Specialization and Technology”, Sassone 1996
Office productivity: the impacts of staffing, intellectual specialization and technology
“Organizational Transformation As Punctuated Equilibrium: An Empirical Test”, Romanelli & Tushman 1994
Organizational Transformation as Punctuated Equilibrium: An Empirical Test
“Don’t Fire the Clerical Staff!”, Sassone 1992b
“Survey Finds Low Office Productivity Linked to Staffing Imbalances”, Sassone 1992
Survey finds low office productivity linked to staffing imbalances
“Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big [Worse Is Better]”, Gabriel 1991
Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big [Worse Is Better]
“The Dynamo and the Computer: A Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox”, David 1990
The Dynamo and the Computer: A Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox
“Computer and Dynamo: The Modern Productivity Paradox In A Not-Too Distant Mirror”, David 1989
Computer and Dynamo: The Modern Productivity Paradox In A Not-Too Distant Mirror
“We’d Better Watch Out [Review of Manufacturing Matters: The Myth of the Post-Industrial Economy, Cohen & Zysman 1987]”, Solow 1987
“Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World”, Simon 1971
Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World:
“Optimum Location in Spatial Competition”, Smithies 1941
Optimum Location in Spatial Competition:
“Increasing Returns and Economic Progress”, Young 1928
Increasing Returns and Economic Progress:
“Rise of the Robots Speeds Up in Pandemic With U.S. Labor Scarce”
Rise of the Robots Speeds Up in Pandemic With U.S. Labor Scarce
“What Explains the Evolution of Management Models over the past Two Centuries?”
What explains the evolution of management models over the past two centuries?
“The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine—First Draft”, Kelly 2025
“Technology Transfer and Early Industrial Development: The Case of the Sino-Soviet Alliance”
Technology transfer and early industrial development: The case of the Sino-Soviet Alliance
“Remote Work and the Future of Innovation”
“Beware of the Robot Pharmacist”, Wachter 2025
“The End of Starsky Robotics”
“The Poor ROI of Autonomy. A Product Dive on How Most ROI Comes...”, Seltz-Axmacher 2025
The Poor ROI of Autonomy. A Product Dive on how most ROI comes...
“The Puzzle of the Missing Robots”
The Puzzle of the Missing Robots:
“Reflections on Palantir [After Leaving]”, Qureshi 2025
“Overboard On Offshore Fears”
Overboard On Offshore Fears:
“‘Rasmussen and Practical Drift: Drift towards Danger and the Normalization of Deviance’, 2017”
‘Rasmussen and practical drift: Drift towards danger and the normalization of deviance’, 2017
“No Human Can Match This High-Speed Box-Unloading Robot Named After a Pickle”
No Human Can Match This High-Speed Box-Unloading Robot Named After a Pickle
“An Army of Grain-Harvesting Robots Marches Across Russia”
An Army of Grain-Harvesting Robots Marches Across Russia:
“Today’s Robotic Surgery Turns Surgical Trainees Into Spectators”
Today’s Robotic Surgery Turns Surgical Trainees Into Spectators:
“Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot, and What’s So Hard About Consumer Robotics”
Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot, and What’s So Hard About Consumer Robotics
“Selling Software To Large Businesses”, McKenzie 2025
Selling Software To Large Businesses:
“Winged Luddites: Aviators Are the Biggest Threat to Carrier Aviation”
Winged Luddites: Aviators Are the Biggest Threat to Carrier Aviation:
“The Robots Are Coming for Garment Workers”
The Robots Are Coming for Garment Workers:
“Alibaba's Driverless Robots Just Made Their One Millionth E-Commerce Delivery”
Alibaba's Driverless Robots Just Made Their One Millionth E-commerce Delivery:
“The March of Robots Into Chinese Factories”
“The U.S. Productivity Slowdown: an Economy-Wide and Industry-Level Analysis”
The U.S. productivity slowdown: an economy-wide and industry-level analysis
“General Purpose Technologies and the Rise & Fall of Great Powers”, Ding 2025
General Purpose Technologies and the Rise & Fall of Great Powers:
“Where Are The Robotic Bricklayers?”
“Japan Is Both Obsessed With and Resistant to Robots”
Japan is both obsessed with and resistant to robots:
“Kai-Fu Lee on How Covid Spurs China’s Great Robotic Leap Forward”
Kai-Fu Lee on how covid spurs China’s great robotic leap forward:
“Economists Are Revising Their Views on Robots and Jobs”
Economists are revising their views on robots and jobs:
“What Is It like to Work in an Ethiopian Factory?”
“Is Software Eating the World?”
“Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords”
“The Age of Robot Farmers”
“Paging Dr. Robot”
“What Robots Can—And Can’t—Do for the Old and Lonely”
“Invasion of the Robot Umpires”
“Robotic Milkers and an Automated Greenhouse: Inside a High-Tech Small Farm”
Robotic Milkers and an Automated Greenhouse: Inside a High-Tech Small Farm
“The Robots Are Coming for Phil in Accounting”
“‘We Don’t Need Another Michelangelo’: In Italy, It’s Robots’ Turn to Sculpt”
‘We Don’t Need Another Michelangelo’: In Italy, It’s Robots’ Turn to Sculpt
“A New Generation of AI-Powered Robots Is Taking over Warehouses”
A new generation of AI-powered robots is taking over warehouses:
“How Graze Mowing's Self-Driving Mower Is Disrupting the $100 Billion Commercial Landscaping Industry”
“Tog’s Paradox [Jevons Paradox for Software Features]”
“Turns Out the Dot-Com Bust’s Worst Flops Were Actually Fantastic Ideas”
Turns Out the Dot-Com Bust’s Worst Flops Were Actually Fantastic Ideas:
“Inside the Amazon Warehouse Where Humans and Machines Become One”
Inside the Amazon Warehouse Where Humans and Machines Become One:
“Robots Are Fueling the Quiet Ascendance of the Electric Motor”
Robots Are Fueling the Quiet Ascendance of the Electric Motor:
“As Robots Fill the Workplace, They Must Learn to Get Along”
As Robots Fill the Workplace, They Must Learn to Get Along:
“These Robots Follow You to Learn Where to Go”
These Robots Follow You to Learn Where to Go:
“Robots Invade the Construction Site”
Robots Invade the Construction Site:
“You Can Now Buy Spot the Robot Dog—If You’ve Got $74,500”
You Can Now Buy Spot the Robot Dog—If You’ve Got $74,500:
“The Robots Are Coming for Garment Workers. That’s Good for the U.S., Bad for Poor Countries: Automation Is Reaching into Trades That Once Seemed Immune, Transforming Sweatshops in Places like Bangladesh and Bringing Production back to America”
“Automation”
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Wikipedia
Miscellaneous
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:economics/ automation/ 2022-01-07-xkcd-2565-latency.png /doc/
:economics/ automation/ 2021-handwerker-figure2-panelb-flatterstartupmanagementovertime.png /doc/
:economics/ automation/ 2021-kunn-figure1-eliterapidchessperformanceonlineduringcovid19.jpg https://
americanaffairsjournal.org/ 2022/ 11/ the-long-slow-death-of-global-development/ https://
arnoldkling.substack.com/ p/ the-marginal-revolution-is-dead https://
cacm.acm.org/ research/ the-decline-of-computers-as-a-general-purpose-technology/ https://
:fullfrontal.moe/ animes-present-and-future-interview-with-terumi-nishii-and-ayano-fukumiya/ https://
loeber.substack.com/ p/ 15-maybe-you-should-invest-in-translation https://
markusstrasser.org/ extracting-knowledge-from-literature/ https://
medium.com/ @Vinylmint/ history-of-the-record-industry-1920-1950s-6d491d7cb606 https://
:news.ycombinator.com/ item?id=36036635 https://
:papers.ssrn.com/ sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=4594466 https://
:quillette.com/ 2022/ 07/ 21/ steam-electricity-slavery-and-societal-sustainability/ https://
:qz.com/ 1419418/ uniqlo-cut-90-of-staff-at-one-warehouse-by-replacing-them-with-robots/ https://
:reallifemag.com/ perpetual-motion-machines/ https://
richardkatz.substack.com/ p/ 2025-digital-cliff-part-i https://
richardkatz.substack.com/ p/ metis-2025-digital-cliff-part-ii https://
richardkatz.substack.com/ p/ metis-2025-digital-cliff-part-iii https://
sergey.substack.com/ p/ whats-the-price-elasticity-of-demand https://
:sifted.eu/ articles/ cala-robot/ https://
www.bloomberg.com/ view/ articles/ 2018-02-09/ lessons-from-a-slow-motion-robot-takeover https://
:www.construction-physics.com/ p/ what-happened-to-the-us-machine-tool https://
www.construction-physics.com/ p/ where-do-economies-of-scale-come https://
:www.economist.com/ business/ 2024/ 02/ 29/ how-businesses-are-actually-using-generative-ai https://
www.newyorker.com/ tech/ annals-of-technology/ the-rise-and-fall-of-getting-things-done https://
www.overcomingbias.com/ 2020/ 08/ remote-work-specializes.html https://
:www.reddit.com/ r/ duolingo/ comments/ 18sx06i/ big_layoff_at_duolingo/ https://
:www.secondbest.ca/ p/ the-limits-of-explosive-growth https://
:www.stockperformer.com/ blog/ is-ai-killing-the-stock-industry-a-data-perspective/ https://
:www.theregister.com/ 2016/ 07/ 06/ researchers_create_robotic_rectum_for_science/ https://
www.vox.com/ future-perfect/ 24108787/ ai-economic-growth-explosive-automation https://
:www.wired.com/ story/ china-chatgpt-opportunists-grifters-hard-at-work/ https://
:www.wired.com/ story/ dog-poodemic-robots-drones/ https://
:www.wired.com/ story/ why-the-floppy-disk-just-wont-die/ https://
:www.wsj.com/ articles/ meatpackers-covid-safety-automation-robots-coronavirus-11594303535 https://
:www.wsj.com/ articles/ restaurant-robots-kitchen-labor-shortage-11628290623 https://
:www.wsj.com/ business/ meet-the-robots-slicing-your-barbecue-ribs-338a7794
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: “Election Workers Are Drowning in Records Requests. AI Chatbots Could Make It Worse: Experts Worry That Election Deniers Could Weaponize Chatbots to Overwhelm and Slow down Local Officials”,www.wired.com/ story/ ai-chatbots-foia-requests-election-workers/ 2024-feigenbaum.pdf
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