Paper: "bottleneck pressure" shows work AI can't do gets more valuable as AI spreads
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-11-05
A revised 116-page paper from Soumitra Shukla (Burning Glass Institute) introduces "bottleneck pressure": as AI speeds up the rest of a job, the marginal value of tasks AI can't do rises. Using 288M US job postings (2018–mid-2026) mapped to ONET tasks with GPT-4 feasibility ratings, it finds pressure is 6.5% higher in senior than junior postings (H1 2026), and mean occupational pressure rose from 17.6 to 18.7 (6%), three quarters of that from task mentions shifting toward higher-pressure occupations.
Related event: New paper proposes "bottleneck pressure": tasks AI can't do gain value(2 posts)→
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