Abstract
Recent advances in artificial intelligence may herald the near arrival of systems that can automate essentially all work. We review the macroeconomic implications of this scenario in a framework that synthesizes several strands of the relevant literature. Robustly, fully automating production alone (so that machines can self-replicate) would dramatically raise the growth rate and lower the labor share, breaking the Kaldor Facts that have long characterized frontier growth. Automating research and development (so that machines can self-improve) would accelerate the transformation but may not produce it in isolation. Wages—the product of exploding output and a plummeting labor share—may rise or fall, depending on the returns to scale, the importance of natural resources, tastes, and the direction of technical change.