---
title: "Automation and Repression · AI Fault Line"
url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-e53e3167f9b3fbf3/
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/)

# Automation and Repression

[Daron Acemoglu](https://aifaultline.com/authors/daron-acemoglu/), A. Arda Gitmez, Mehdi Shadmehr · NBER Working Papers · June 2026

[Read original source](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35336)

Where this sits in the debate

- [Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/jobs/)

- [Will AI widen inequality?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/inequality/) · its finding supports the claim ([why studies differ](https://aifaultline.com/debate/inequality/#why))

Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)).

## Key takeaway [AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)

A theoretical NBER model in which automation raises capital's share of national income and so the risk of a worker revolt, modelled as a global game. It studies how decentralised automation decisions interact with that political risk.

## Abstract

We consider a model of automation embedded in a political environment where workers can undertake a revolt (modeled as a global game), and greater inequality between capital and labor increases the likelihood of a revolt. Decentralized automation decisions raise the share of capital in national

## About this publication

**Working paper.** A working paper — circulated for discussion before formal peer review, the standard first outlet in economics.

Published

2026

Citations

Not recorded for this source

Citation counts come from OpenAlex; none are recorded for this source — absence of a count is not absence of citations.

[Chart: published 2026]

Daron Acemoglu 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

- [Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1126-science-adh2586/) Science · 2023

- [The simple macroeconomics of AI](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1093-epolic-eiae042/) Economic Policy · 2024

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