James Bessen, Maarten Goos, Anna Salomons, and Wiljan van den Berge
New research on the effects of automation on jobs and wages finds minor impacts compared to mass layoffs, and with greatest impact on higher-paid workers.
Iain Cockburn interviewed in BU Today on the future of jobs and automation.
James Bessen quoted in Fast Company about the effects of automation on employment.
David Autor and Robert Seamans quoted in the New York Times about the effects of automation on employment.
James Bessen, Stephen Michael Impink, Lydia Reichensperger, and Robert Seamans
A new survey of AI startups offers insight into AI’s impact on jobs and the economy, including data suggesting a competitive market for startups and the use of AI to enhance rather than replace human labor.
James Bessen quoted in PBS NewsHour, Nov. 16, 2018.
James Bessen debates on AI. Read more ->
David Autor and Anna Salomons
While many technological innovations replace workers with machines, what effect does that have on overall employment and productivity? This paper explores automation’s impact on total employment and aggregate demand.
Iain Cockburn, Rebecca Henderson, and Scott Stern.
Can artificial intelligence serve as a new general-purpose “method of invention” that can reshape the nature of the innovation process and the organization of R&D? Research suggests that this may lead to a significant substitution away from more routinized labor-intensive research towards research that takes advantage of the interplay between passively generated large datasets and enhanced prediction algorithms. The authors suggest that policies which encourage transparency and sharing of core datasets across both public and private actors may be critical tools for stimulating research productivity and innovation-oriented competition.
James Bessen
Will industries use new information technologies to eliminate jobs? Sometimes productivity-enhancing technology increases industry employment instead. In manufacturing, jobs grew along with productivity for a century or more; only later did productivity gains bring declining employment. What changed? Markets became saturated.
Research Summary: Why Isn’t Automation Creating Unemployment?