Bronwyn Hall: AI's R&D impact lies in tackling intractable problems, not efficiency gains
JMateosGarcia · x · 2026-11-11
Discussing Ben Jones' NBER model, economist Bronwyn Hall argues AI's impact on R&D is less about pure efficiency gains and more about tackling previously intractable problems — a distinction requiring different modeling. Her high-energy physics example (manual analysis to ML-enabled Higgs discovery) shows such transformation came with expanding scope, complexity, and team sizes, complicating simple productivity calculations.
Related event: NBER models question whether AI capabilities translate into growth(2 posts)→
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