Episode
S9 Ep18: Will AI transform economic growth?
- Podcast
- VoxTalks Economics
- Published
- Mar 13, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1881
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://audioboom.com/posts/8873500
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Summary
Could AI transform our economies to produce explosive growth? Most economists are sceptical at best. Anton Korinek of the University of Virginia, leader of the CEPR research policy network on AI, thinks the threshold is closer than those models suggest. In his latest work, Korinek, Tom Davidson, Basil Halperin, and Thomas Houlden, have built a growth model that captures what happens when AI starts automating AI research itself. Automation does two things simultaneously: it accelerates research, and it offsets the diminishing returns that have historically stopped self-improving processes from compounding. Three reinforcing feedback loops: software quality, hardware quality, and general technological progress, each amplify the others. Korinek's findings are more optimistic than even the AI labs' own roadmaps, which focus on software capability alone. The research behind this episode: Davidson, Tom, Basil Halperin, Thomas Houlden, and Anton Korinek. 2026. "When Does Automating AI Research Produce Explosive Growth? Feedback Loops in Innovation Networks." Working paper, January 2026. To cite this episode: Phillips, Tim, and Anton Korinek. 2026. "When Does Automating AI Research Produce Explosive Growth?" VoxTalks Economics (podcast). Assign this as extra listening. The citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE. About the guests Anton Korinek is a professor of economics at the University of Virginia. He leads the CEPR Research Policy Network on AI, which is building a community of researchers to understand and anticipate the economic impact of artificial intelligence. He is a member of Anthropic's Economic Advisory Council and was named by Time magazine among the hundred most influential people in AI. His research spanning the economics of transformati…