working paperSource

Past Automation and Future A.I.: How Weak Links Tame the Growth Explosion

A May 2026 working paper that uses task-based growth accounting and an endogenous automation model to study past automation and the pace of future AI-led growth.

Authors or creators: Charles I. Jones, Christopher Tonetti
Checked: 2026-07-29

Source note: Primary working paper, version 0.5. The quantitative forecast is model-dependent and may change in later revisions.

Claims connected to this source

Automation replaces slowly improving human task inputs with faster-improving capital.
Complementarity among tasks creates weak links that slow aggregate gains.
Growth can eventually accelerate sharply even when the first decades look similar to the historical path.

Open original · Stanford Graduate School of Business and NBER

Source

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