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Payrolls to Prompts: Firm-Level Evidence on the Substitution of Labor for AI

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00139
2•talon8635•2h ago

Comments

talon8635•2h ago
Generative AI has the potential to transform how firms produce output. Yet, credible evidence on how AI is actually substituting for human labor remains limited. In this paper, we study firm-level substitution between contracted online labor and generative AI using payments data from a large U.S. expense management platform. We track quarterly spending from Q3 2021 to Q3 2025 on online labor marketplaces (such as Upwork and Fiverr) and leading AI model providers. To identify causal effects, we exploit the October 2022 release of ChatGPT as a common adoption shock and estimate a difference-in-differences model. We provide a novel measure of exposure based on the share of spending at online labor marketplaces prior to the shock. Firms with greater exposure to online labor adopt AI earlier and more intensively following the shock, while simultaneously reducing spending on contracted labor. By Q3 2025, firms in the highest exposure quartile increase their share of spending on AI model providers by 0.8 percentage points relative to the lowest exposure quartile, alongside significant declines in labor marketplace spending. Combining these responses yields a direct estimate of substitution: among the most exposed firms, a $1 decline in online labor spending is associated with approximately $0.03 of additional AI spending, implying order-of-magnitude cost savings from replacing outsourced tasks with AI services. These effects are heterogeneous across firms and emerge gradually over time. Taken together, our results provide the first direct, micro-level evidence that generative AI is being used as a partial substitute for human labor in production.

Why the "Lesser Included Action" Argument for Ieepa Tariffs Fails

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/why-the-lesser-included-action-argument...
1•paulpauper•44s ago•0 comments

FCC calls on broadcasters to air 'pro-America content' for 250th anniversary

https://www.theverge.com/policy/882250/fcc-brendan-carr-pro-america-content-250-anniversary
1•aaronbrethorst•59s ago•0 comments

U.S. plans Peace Corps-style "Tech Corps" to counter China's AI exports

https://restofworld.org/2026/us-tech-corp-ai-volunteers/
1•thm•4m ago•0 comments

Rewriting the Chivalrous Yakuza: Interview with Stray Manga Writer Ryu Kamio

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2026-02-11/rewriting-the-chivalrous-yakuza-with-stray-...
1•PaulHoule•4m ago•0 comments

My Desk Setup: From Multi-Monitor to Single Screen with Virtual Desktops

https://www.ssp.sh/brain/computer-desk-setup-monitor-workflow/
2•articsputnik•5m ago•0 comments

Understanding Real-World Consequences in OT

https://www.emberot.com/resources/blog/ot-security-consequences-it-org-now-ot-curious-part-3/
1•TheWiggles•5m ago•0 comments

Why your next infrastructure won't be coded

https://wanderclan.eu/from-microservices-to-agent-mesh-why-your-next-infrastructure-wont-be-coded/
1•choutos•6m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Gemini app activity vs. AI training

1•mpaepper•7m ago•1 comments

"apython": Accelerated asm Python 3.12

https://github.com/jgarzik/apython
1•jgarzik•7m ago•1 comments

DialUp95 – A 90s inspired nostalgia hit

https://dialup95.com/
1•robputt•8m ago•0 comments

More Lessons from 14 years at Google

https://addyosmani.com/blog/14-more-lessons/
1•xnx•9m ago•0 comments

Show HN: SmartMan – A modern, interactive TUI for Linux man pages

https://github.com/ambaskaryash/smartman-cli
1•ambaskaryash•10m ago•0 comments

Goldman Sachs Launches AI-Free Index

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/20/2134238/goldman-sachs-launches-ai-free-index
1•instagib•11m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Quicklify – Deploy Coolify to any VPS in 4 minutes with one command

https://github.com/omrfc/quicklify
1•omrfc•11m ago•0 comments

AI Is Going Away

https://undeleted.ronsor.com/ai-is-going-away/
1•ronsor•12m ago•0 comments

Grip – Retrieval engine, no embeddings, no vector DB

https://pypi.org/project/getgrip/
1•Nivens_McTwisp•12m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Portname – named localhost URLs for every dev server

https://github.com/hirendhola/portname
1•hrncode•13m ago•0 comments

Colorado Lawmakers Push for Age Verification at the Operating System Level

https://uk.pcmag.com/security/163291/colorado-lawmakers-push-for-age-verification-at-the-operatin...
2•vorticalbox•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: The Department of Words

https://dow.voxos.ai
1•Falimonda•13m ago•1 comments

Show HN: The Perfect Fit – A Valentine's day story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwFgRjhKay0
1•hotrod46•14m ago•0 comments

That time the US military burned down one of its own bases with a 'bat bomb'

https://taskandpurpose.com/history/bat-bombs-burned-base/
1•ilamont•14m ago•0 comments

Showcasing Creative Coding

https://justforfun.io/
1•TigerUniversity•16m ago•0 comments

Starlost Unauthorized by D. G. Valdron (a review)

https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com/single-post/starlost-unauthorized-by-d-g-valdron
1•cf100clunk•16m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Rigour – Open-source quality gates for AI coding agents

https://rigour.run
1•erashu212•18m ago•1 comments

Humanity as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Symptoms, Patterns, and Drivers

https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/126-humanity-as-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde
1•ambientenv•18m ago•0 comments

YC: The AI Agent Economy Is Here [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8wVMdwhlh4
1•avaer•20m ago•1 comments

How Standards Proliferate

https://xkcd.com/927/
2•7777777phil•20m ago•0 comments

Cooperative Multitasking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_multitasking
2•tosh•20m ago•0 comments

My family assistant is now running on local AI

https://www.nunodonato.com/my-family-assistant-now-runs-on-local-ai/
1•nunodonato•21m ago•0 comments

The Missing Link Between AI and Business Value

https://blog.jetbrains.com/ai/2026/02/the-missing-link-between-ai-and-business-value/
1•wseqyrku•21m ago•2 comments