IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v52y2023i1s0048733322001743.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Could machine learning be a general purpose technology? A comparison of emerging technologies using data from online job postings

Author

Listed:
  • Goldfarb, Avi
  • Taska, Bledi
  • Teodoridis, Florenta

Abstract

Many emerging technologies have aspects of General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). However, true GPTs are rare and hold potential for large-scale economic impact. Thus, it is important for policymakers and managers to assess which emerging technologies are likely GPTs. We describe an approach that uses data from online job ads to rank emerging technologies on their GPT likelihood. The approach suggests which technologies are likely to have a broader economic impact, and which are likely to remain useful but narrower enabling technologies. Our approach has at least 5 years predictive power distinct from prevailing patent-based methods of identifying GPTs. We apply our approach to 21 different emerging technologies, and find that a cluster of technologies comprised of machine learning and related data science technologies is relatively likely to be a GPT.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldfarb, Avi & Taska, Bledi & Teodoridis, Florenta, 2023. "Could machine learning be a general purpose technology? A comparison of emerging technologies using data from online job postings," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:52:y:2023:i:1:s0048733322001743
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2022.104653
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733322001743
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104653?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bojovic, Neva, 2022. "Strategic framing of enabling technologies: Insights from firms digitizing smell and taste," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    2. Sergio Petralia, 2020. "Mapping General Purpose Technologies with Patent Data," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2027, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2020.
    3. Daniel Fleder & Kartik Hosanagar, 2009. "Blockbuster Culture's Next Rise or Fall: The Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales Diversity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 697-712, May.
    4. Brad Hershbein & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence from Vacancy Postings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1737-1772, July.
    5. Rahul Kapoor & David J. Teece, 2021. "Three Faces of Technology’s Value Creation: Emerging, Enabling, Embedding," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 1-4, March.
    6. Teece, David J., 2018. "Profiting from innovation in the digital economy: Enabling technologies, standards, and licensing models in the wireless world," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1367-1387.
    7. Delgado, Mercedes & Porter, Michael E. & Stern, Scott, 2014. "Clusters, convergence, and economic performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1785-1799.
    8. F. Etro, 2009. "The Economic Impact of Cloud Computing on Business Creation, Employment and Output in Europe. An application of the Endogenous Market Structures Approach to a GPT innovation," Review of Business and Economic Literature, Intersentia, vol. 54(2), pages 179-209, June.
    9. Paul Attewell, 1992. "Technology Diffusion and Organizational Learning: The Case of Business Computing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(1), pages 1-19, February.
    10. Prasanna Tambe, 2014. "Big Data Investment, Skills, and Firm Value," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1452-1469, June.
    11. Alessandro Nuvolari, 2004. "Collective invention during the British Industrial Revolution: the case of the Cornish pumping engine," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 28(3), pages 347-363, May.
    12. Rosenberg, Nathan, 1963. "Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840–1910," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 414-443, December.
    13. Alfonso Gambardella & Sohvi Heaton & Elena Novelli & David J. Teece, 2021. "Profiting from Enabling Technologies?," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 75-90, March.
    14. Raffaele Conti & Alfonso Gambardella & Elena Novelli, 2019. "Specializing in general purpose technologies as a firm long-term strategy," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 28(2), pages 351-364.
    15. Jovanovic, Boyan & Rousseau, Peter L., 2005. "General Purpose Technologies," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1181-1224, Elsevier.
    16. Jason M. Rathje & Riitta Katila, 2021. "Enabling Technologies and the Role of Private Firms: A Machine Learning Matching Analysis," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 5-21, March.
    17. Harald Edquist & Peter Goodridge & Jonathan Haskel, 2021. "The Internet of Things and economic growth in a panel of countries," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 262-283, April.
    18. Prasanna Tambe & Lorin M. Hitt, 2012. "Now IT's Personal: Offshoring and the Shifting Skill Composition of the U.S. Information Technology Workforce," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 678-695, April.
    19. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    20. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    21. Petra Moser & Tom Nicholas, 2004. "Was Electricity a General Purpose Technology? Evidence from Historical Patent Citations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 388-394, May.
    22. Bronwyn H. Hall & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2006. "Uncovering General Purpose Technologies with Patent Data," Chapters, in: Cristiano Antonelli & Dominique Foray & Bronwyn H. Hall & W. Edward Steinmueller (ed.), New Frontiers in the Economics of Innovation and New Technology, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    23. Lipsey, Richard G. & Carlaw, Kenneth I. & Bekar, Clifford T., 2005. "Economic Transformations: General Purpose Technologies and Long-Term Economic Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199290895, Decembrie.
    24. Allen, Robert C., 1983. "Collective invention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, March.
    25. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    26. Maryann P. Feldman & Ji Woong Yoon, 2012. "An empirical test for general purpose technology: an examination of the Cohen--Boyer rDNA technology," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 21(2), pages 249-275, April.
    27. Petralia, Sergio, 2020. "Mapping general purpose technologies with patent data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(7).
    28. repec:adr:anecst:y:2014:i:115-116:p:2 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. F. Etro, 2009. "The Economic Impact of Cloud Computing on Business Creation, Employment and Output in Europe. An application of the Endogenous Market Structures Approach to a GPT innovation," Review of Business and Economic Literature, Intersentia, vol. 0(2), pages 179-209, June.
    30. Raffaele Conti & Alfonso Gambardella & Elena Novelli, 2019. "Specializing in Generality: Firm Strategies When Intermediate Markets Work," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 126-150, February.
    31. Bresnahan, Timothy, 2010. "General Purpose Technologies," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 761-791, Elsevier.
    32. Bruno Cassiman & Reinhilde Veugelers, 2006. "In Search of Complementarity in Innovation Strategy: Internal R& D and External Knowledge Acquisition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(1), pages 68-82, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristina McElheran & J. Frank Li & Erik Brynjolfsson & Zachary Kroff & Emin Dinlersoz & Lucia S. Foster & Nikolas Zolas, 2023. "AI Adoption in America: Who, What, and Where," NBER Working Papers 31788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Tamay Besiroglu & Nicholas Emery-Xu & Neil Thompson, 2022. "Economic impacts of AI-augmented R&D," Papers 2212.08198, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    3. Benjamin Laufer & Jon Kleinberg & Hoda Heidari, 2023. "Fine-Tuning Games: Bargaining and Adaptation for General-Purpose Models," Papers 2308.04399, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    4. Matthias Niggli & Christian Rutzer, 2023. "Digital technologies, technological improvement rates, and innovations “Made in Switzerland”," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 159(1), pages 1-31, December.
    5. Qin Chen & Jinfeng Ge & Huaqing Xie & Xingcheng Xu & Yanqing Yang, 2023. "Large Language Models at Work in China's Labor Market," Papers 2308.08776, arXiv.org.
    6. Tyna Eloundou & Sam Manning & Pamela Mishkin & Daniel Rock, 2023. "GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models," Papers 2303.10130, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    7. Heikkilä, Jussi & Rissanen, Julius & Ali-Vehmas, Timo, 2023. "Coopetition, standardization and general purpose technologies: A framework and an application," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(4).
    8. Sam Ruiqing Cao & Marco Iansiti, 2022. "Organizational Barriers to Transforming Large Finance Corporations: Cloud Adoption and the Importance of Technological Architecture," CESifo Working Paper Series 10142, CESifo.
    9. A. A. Ternikov, 2023. "Artificial intelligence and the demand for skills in Russia," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 11.
    10. Cave, Jonathan & Waterson, Michael & Battisti, Giuliana, 2023. "Economic Impact of Significant New Deployment of Infrastructure: Historical examples and links to potential high impact outcomes for 5G," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 669, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heikkilä, Jussi & Rissanen, Julius & Ali-Vehmas, Timo, 2023. "Coopetition, standardization and general purpose technologies: A framework and an application," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(4).
    2. Bojovic, Neva, 2022. "Strategic framing of enabling technologies: Insights from firms digitizing smell and taste," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    3. Waßenhoven, Anna & Rennings, Michael & Laibach, Natalie & Bröring, Stefanie, 2023. "What constitutes a “Key Enabling Technology” for transition processes: Insights from the bioeconomy's technological landscape," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    4. Kemeny, Tom & Petralia, Sergio & Storper, Michael, 2022. "Disruptive innovation and spatial inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115953, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Kroll, Henning & Berghäuser, Hendrik & Blind, Knut & Neuhäusler, Peter & Scheifele, Fabian & Thielmann, Axel & Wydra, Sven, 2022. "Schlüsseltechnologien," Studien zum deutschen Innovationssystem 7-2022, Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation (EFI) - Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation, Berlin.
    6. Ajay Agrawal & Joshua S. Gans & Avi Goldfarb, 2023. "Similarities and Differences in the Adoption of General Purpose Technologies," NBER Chapters, in: Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Petralia, Sergio, 2020. "Mapping general purpose technologies with patent data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(7).
    8. Roberto Antonietti & Luca Cattani & Francesca Gambarotto & Giulio Pedrini, 2021. "Education, routine, and complexity-biased Knowledge Enabling Technologies: Evidence from Emilia-Romagna, Italy," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2021-07, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised May 2021.
    9. Kerstin Hotte & Taheya Tarannum & Vilhelm Verendel & Lauren Bennett, 2022. "Exploring Artificial Intelligence as a General Purpose Technology with Patent Data -- A Systematic Comparison of Four Classification Approaches," Papers 2204.10304, arXiv.org.
    10. Sergio Petralia, 2020. "GPTs and Growth: Evidence on the Technological Adoption of Electrical & Electronic Technologies in the 1920s," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2033, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2020.
    11. Sergio Petralia, 2020. "Mapping General Purpose Technologies with Patent Data," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2027, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2020.
    12. Mark Knell & Simone Vannuccini, 2022. "Tools and concepts for understanding disruptive technological change after Schumpeter," Jena Economics Research Papers 2022-005, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    13. Ekaterina Prytkova, 2021. "ICT's Wide Web: a System-Level Analysis of ICT's Industrial Diffusion with Algorithmic Links," Jena Economics Research Papers 2021-005, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    14. Kristina McElheran & J. Frank Li & Erik Brynjolfsson & Zachary Kroff & Emin Dinlersoz & Lucia Foster & Nikolas Zolas, 2024. "AI adoption in America: Who, what, and where," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 375-415, March.
    15. Leonard Dudley, 2010. "General Purpose Technologies and the Industrial Revolution," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2010-11, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    16. Liu, Yong & Du, Jun-liang & Yang, Jin-bi & Qian, Wu-yong & Forrest, Jeffrey Yi-Lin, 2019. "An incentive mechanism for general purpose technologies R&D based on the concept of super-conflict equilibrium: Empirical evidence from nano industrial technology in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 185-197.
    17. Enrico Santarelli & Jacopo Staccioli & Marco Vivarelli, 2023. "Automation and related technologies: a mapping of the new knowledge base," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 779-813, April.
    18. Zhang, Yi & Wu, Mengjia & Miao, Wen & Huang, Lu & Lu, Jie, 2021. "Bi-layer network analytics: A methodology for characterizing emerging general-purpose technologies," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    19. Conti, Raffaele & Novelli, Elena, 2022. "Not all technologies are created equal for stakeholders: Constituency statutes, firm stakeholder orientation and investments in technology generality," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    20. Clifford Bekar & Kenneth Carlaw & Richard Lipsey, 2018. "General purpose technologies in theory, application and controversy: a review," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 1005-1033, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Artificial intelligence; Machine learning; General purpose technologies; Enabling technologies; Technology adoption; Technology innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O39 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:52:y:2023:i:1:s0048733322001743. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.