--- title: "Technology and Labor Markets: Past, Present, and Future; Evidence from Two Centuries of Innovation · AI Fault Line" url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1353-eca-2025-a994512/ description: "AI Fault Line is a neutral, evidence-cited field guide to why experts looking at the same developments disagree about AI's effect on productivity, jobs, inequality, regulation and the pace of change." --- [Research](https://aifaultline.com/research/) # Technology and Labor Markets: Past, Present, and Future; Evidence from Two Centuries of Innovation Huben Liu, [Dimitris Papanikolaou](https://aifaultline.com/authors/network/#map=dimitris-papanikolaou), [Lawrence Schmidt](https://aifaultline.com/authors/network/#map=lawrence-schmidt), [Bryan Seegmiller](https://aifaultline.com/authors/bryan-seegmiller/) · Brookings Papers on Economic Activity · 1 Sep 2025 [Read original source](https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2025.a994512) Open access Where this sits in the debate - [Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/jobs/) Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)). ## Abstract ABSTRACT: We use recent advances in natural language processing and large language models to construct novel measures of technology exposure for workers that span almost two centuries. Combining our measures with census data on occupation employment, we show that technological progress over the twentieth century has led to economically meaningful shifts in labor demand across occupations: It has consistently increased demand for occupations with higher education requirements, occupations that pay higher wages, and occupations with a greater fraction of female workers. Using these insights and a calibrated model, we then explore different scenarios for how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are likely to affect employment trends in the medium run. The model predicts a reversal of past trends, with AI favoring occupations that are lower-educated, lower-paid, and more male-dominated. ## About this publication **Leading field journal.** A leading journal in economics or a neighbouring field (on the Tinbergen Institute’s A list or near the top of the RePEc ranking), or a top-rated computer-science venue. Placed by: Leading field journal. [How sources are ranked](https://aifaultline.com/about/#source-ranking). Published 2025 (14 months ago) Citations 0 (OpenAlex) 0 citations recorded by OpenAlex — too few 2025 papers in this collection for a fair comparison. [Chart: published 2025] □ added to this collection in 2026. Bryan Seegmiller signed the wemustactnow.ai letter — part of why this paper is in the collection. ## More on this topic Related by theme, not necessarily by method or conclusion. - [The Effects of Generative AI on High Skilled Work: Evidence from Three Field Experiments with Software Developers](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-2139-ssrn-4945566/) SSRN · 2024 - [GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-48550-arxiv-2303-10130/) arXiv · 2023 - [Extending “GPTs Are GPTs” to Firms](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1257-pandp-20251045/) AEA Papers and Proceedings · 2025 - [New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1093-qje-qjae008/) The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2024 Overview assembled automatically from collected metadata. [How this site is built](https://aifaultline.com/about/).