Generative AI at the Crossroads: Light Bulb, Dynamo, or Microscope?
With the advent of generative AI (genAI), the potential scope of artificial intelligence has increased dramatically, but the future effect of genAI on productivity remains uncertain with the effect of the technology on the innovation process a crucial open question. Some inventions, such as the light bulb, temporarily raise productivity growth as adoption spreads, but the effect fades when the market is saturated; that is, the level of output per hour is permanently higher but the growth rate is not. In contrast, two types of technologies stand out as having longer-lived effects on productivity growth. First, there are technologies known as general-purpose technologies (GPTs). GPTs (1) are widely adopted, (2) spur abundant knock-on innovations (new goods and services, process efficiencies, and business reorganization), and (3) show continual improvement, refreshing this innovation cycle; the electric dynamo is an example. Second, there are inventions of methods of invention (IMIs). IMIs increase the efficiency of the research and development process via improvements to observation, analysis, communication, or organization; the compound microscope is an example. We show that GenAI has the characteristics of both a GPT and an IMI -- an encouraging sign. Even so, for genAI to boost productivity growth, its contribution will have to exceed the fading growth effects of the past IT innovations baked into the trend, including predecessor AI technologies.
Code (0)
등록된 구현이 없습니다.
Methods 이 논문이 사용한 방법론
Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
Cheryl's Birthday
We present four logic puzzles and after that their solutions. Joseph Yeo designed 'Cheryl's Birthday'. Mike Hartley came up with a novel solution for 'One Hundred Prisoners and a Light Bulb'. Jonathan Welton designed 'A …
Computational Imaging on the Electric Grid
Night beats with alternating current (AC) illumination. By passively sensing this beat, we reveal new scene information which includes: the type of bulbs in the scene, the phases of the electric grid up to city scale, an…
When do firms sell high durability products? The case of light bulb industry
This study empirically investigates firms' incentives on the choice of product durability, and its social optimality, by developing a dynamic structural model of durable goods with forward-looking consumers and oligopoli…
Incandescent Bulb and LED Brake Lights:Novel Analysis of Reaction Times
Rear-end collision accounts for around 8% of all vehicle crashes in the UK, with the failure to notice or react to a brake light signal being a major contributory cause. Meanwhile traditional incandescent brake light bul…
DynamoLLM: Designing LLM Inference Clusters for Performance and Energy Efficiency
The rapid evolution and widespread adoption of generative large language models (LLMs) have made them a pivotal workload in various applications. Today, LLM inference clusters receive a large number of queries with stric…