“‘Automation’ of Manufacturing in the Late 19th Century: The Hand and Machine Labor Study”, 2019 (; similar):
Recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics have generated a robust debate about the future of work. An analogous debate occurred in the late 19th century when mechanization first transformed manufacturing. We analyze an extraordinary dataset from the late 19th century, the Hand and Machine Labor study carried out by the US Department of Labor in the mid-1890s. We focus on transitions at the task level from hand to machine production, and on the impact of inanimate power, especially of steam power, on labor productivity. Our analysis sheds light on the ability of modern task-based models to account for the effects of historical mechanization.
[Summary by Jack Clark & Matthew van der Merwe:
Quantifying automation in the Industrial Revolution: We all know that the Industrial Revolution involved the substantial substitution of human labour for machine labour. 2019 paper from a trio of economists paints a clear quantitative picture of automation in this period, using the 1899 US Hand and Machine Labor Study.
The dataset: The HML study is a remarkable data-set that has only recently been analyzed by economic historians. Commissioned by Congress and collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the study collected observations on the production of 626 manufactured units (eg. ‘men’s laced shoes’) and recorded in detail the tasks involved in their production and relevant inputs to each task. For each unit, this data was collected for machine-production, and hand-production.
Key findings: The paper looks at transitions between hand-labour and machine-labour across tasks. It finds clear evidence for both the displacement and productivity effects of automation on labour:
67% of hand tasks transitioned 1-to-1 to being performed by machines and a further 28% of hand tasks were subdivided or consolidated into machine tasks. Only 4% of hand tasks were abandoned.
New tasks (not previously done by hand) represented one-third of machine tasks.
Machine labour reduced total production time by a factor of 7.
The net effect of new tasks on labour demand was positive—time taken up by new machine-tasks was 5× the time lost on abandoned hand-tasks
Matthew’s view: The Industrial Revolution is perhaps the most transformative period in human history so far, with massive effects on labour, living standards, and other important variables. It seems likely that advances in AI could have a similarly transformative effect on society, and that we are in a position to influence this transformation and ensure that it goes well. This makes understanding past transitions particularly important.
Aside from the paper’s object-level conclusions, I’m struck by how valuable this diligent empirical work from the 1890s, and the foresight of people who saw the importance in gathering high-quality data in the midst of this transition. This should serve as inspiration for those involved in efforts to track metrics of AI progress.]