Will Generative AI Empower or Replace Us? Task Creation, Automation, and the Wage-Productivity Gap
GERAD Research Center via YouTube
Overview
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Explore a dynamic economic model analyzing the dual impact of generative artificial intelligence on the workforce through this research seminar. Examine how firms strategically sequence investments between task creation—which expands labor-performed activities—and automation—which transfers existing tasks to machines. Discover the optimal switching point where firms transition from task creation to automation and understand how this irreversible decision creates distinct phases of rising wages followed by declining wages, while productivity continuously increases throughout both periods. Learn about the resulting endogenous wage-productivity gap and its implications for economic policy. Analyze welfare-based, stage-contingent innovation policies and understand why uniform interventions prove inefficient in addressing the complex relationship between AI advancement and worker empowerment versus replacement. Gain insights into the theoretical framework that explains how generative AI can simultaneously empower workers in early stages while potentially replacing them in later phases of technological development.
Syllabus
Will Generative AI Empower or Replace Us? Task Creation, Automation, and the Wage-Productivity Gap
Taught by
GERAD Research Center