Generative AI and the Nature of Work

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology demonstrate a considerable potential to complement human capital intensive activities. While an emerging literature documents wide-ranging productivity effects of AI, relatively little attention has been paid to how AI might change the nature of work itself. How do individuals, especially those in the knowledge economy, adjust how they work when they start using AI? Using the setting of open source software, we study individual level effects that AI has on task allocation. We exploit a natural experiment arising from the deployment of GitHub Copilot, a generative AI code completion tool for software developers. Leveraging millions of panel observations on work activities over a two year period, we use a program eligibility threshold to investigate the impact of AI technology on the task allocation of software developers within a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design. We find that having access to Copilot induces such individuals to shift task allocation towards their core work of coding activities and away from non-core project management activities. We identify two underlying mechanisms driving this shift - an increase in independent rather than collaborative work, and an increase in exploration activities rather than exploitation. The main effects are greater for individuals with relatively lower ability. Our results are robust to alternate identification strategies, bandwidth and kernel selections, and variable definitions. Overall, our estimates point towards a large potential for AI to transform work processes and to potentially flatten organizational hierarchies in the knowledge economy.

Manuel Hoffmann, Sam Boysel, Frank Nagle, Sida Peng, Kevin Xu