On Thursday, February 12, Chad Jones and Chris Tonetti joined Markus’ Academy for a conversation on their paper, Past Automation and Future AI: How Weak Links Tame the Growth Explosion. Chad Jones is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a research associate of the NBER. Chris Tonetti is an Associate Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a research associate at the NBER.
How much of past economic growth is due to automation? Around half. Jones and Tonetti built a standard task-based model to answer the question, and then simulated the model to speculate about the future of AI
Automation boosts growth by switching from slowly improving humans to rapidly improving machines on an increasing number of tasks. However, it can also create bottlenecks and spread capital thin. TFP growth may slow even as automation advances due to the slow-productivity-growing tasks that will still have to be done by humans
AI may deliver explosive growth, but with a 75-year delay due to the weak links. Humanity may have time to solve its problems around inequality, political economy, and AI’s existential risks