AUTOMATION, PARTIAL AND FULL

When some steps of a complex, multi-step task are automated, the demand for human work in remaining complementary sub-tasks goes up. In contrast, when is fully declines. Upon aggregation to macroeconomic scale, partial automatability complex tasks creates bottleneck development, where further growth constrained by scarcity essential work. This removed once become automatable. Theoretical analysis using two-level nested constant elasticity substitution production function specification demonstrates that shift from full automation generates non-convexity: humans and machines switch substitutable, share output accruing workers switches an upward downward trend. process has implications inequality, risk technological unemployment, likelihood secular stagnation.