What impact will AI have on jobs and the economy? (with Anton Korinek)

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Apr 9, 2026

Anton Korinek, an economics professor and director of the EconTAI Initiative studying AI, discusses how AI could reshape growth, jobs, and inequality. He explores if intelligence-as-software can rewire production and trigger rapid compounding growth. They cover limits of automation, risks of demand shortfalls from displaced workers, feedback loops that could accelerate change, and how economic models and tax systems might need to adapt.

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INSIGHT

Recursive Improvement Creates Exponential Feedback Loops

Recursive self-improvement can create reinforcing feedback loops across software, hardware, production, and R&D.
Korinek describes software improving AI, AI designing better chips, and machines enabling more production and research, creating virtuous cycles.

INSIGHT

Automation Could Cause A Short Term Demand Crash

Rapid automation risks a short-term demand shortfall if displaced workers lose income before productivity gains diffuse.
Korinek warns this sequencing could trigger recessions even if long-term output rises dramatically.

ANECDOTE

Thought Experiment On 10 Percent Automation

Korinek uses a thought experiment where AI automates 10% of everyone's job to show uniformly distributed automation can be broadly beneficial.
He argues 10% productivity across the board yields wealth without concentrated losers.

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Read the full transcript here.

Could AI trigger an economic break as large as the Industrial Revolution, or even larger? What changes when labor stops being the main bottleneck in production? If intelligence becomes reproducible like software, what happens to the structure of an economy? How should we think about a world where capital captures what labor once did? Does faster growth necessarily mean better lives, or only more output? How should economists model an economy when software begins to substitute for minds? Are current production functions adequate for a world of autonomous systems and robotics? Why do small shifts in annual productivity matter so much once compounding takes over? How much of AI’s impact depends on cognitive automation alone versus full physical automation? When does automation reduce labor demand, and when does it make human work more valuable? If AI does part of a job better, does that destroy the profession or increase demand for it? Under what conditions do humans remain complements rather than substitutes? Could an AI boom create a recession before it creates abundance? What happens to aggregate demand if white collar workers lose income before productivity gains diffuse widely? If the economy can produce more than ordinary people can afford, who is it really producing for? How quickly can consumption patterns shift in a world of extreme concentration of wealth?

Anton is a Professor at the University of Virginia, Department of Economics and Darden School of Business as well as the Faculty Director of the Economics of Transformative AI (EconTAI) Initiative. He was named to the 2025 TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings and the Peterson Institute, a Research Associate at the NBER, a Research Fellow at the CEPR, and serves on Anthropic's Economic Advisory Council. His research analyzes how to prepare for a world of transformative AI systems. He investigates the implications of advanced AI for economic growth, labor markets, inequality, and the future of our society.

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