O-Ring Automation

Summary

We thank Refine.ink, ChatGPT 5.2 Pro, and Claude Opus 4.5 for research assistance. Funding from the SSHRC is gratefully acknowledged. Responsibility for all errors remains our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Joshua S. Gans Joshua Gans has drawn on the findings of his research for both compensated speaking engagements and consulting engagements. He has written the books Prediction Machines, Power & Prediction, and Innovation + Equality on the economics of AI for which he receives royalties. He is also chief economist of the Creative Destruction Lab, a University of Toronto-based program that helps seed stage companies, from which he receives compensation. He conducts consulting on anti-trust and intellectual property matters with an association with Keystone Strategy and his ownership of Core Economic Research Ltd. He also has equity and advisory relationships with a number of startup firms. Joshua is also a co-founder of All Day TA. Avi Goldfarb I have received grants supporting my research from multiple sources including the Sloan Foundation (ongoing), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (ongoing), the Acceleration Consortium (ongoing), the National Science Foundation (most recently 2018), Google (most recently 2009), WPP (most recently 2009), the Net Institute (most recently 2007), Bell Canada (most recently 2006), Plurimus Corporation (most recently 2001), and the Social Science Research Council (most recently 2000). I run a consulting company, Goldfarb Analytics Corporation, that advises organizations on digital and A.I. strategy, including work on legal cases involving large technology companies. Clients have included Adobe, CIBC, the Competition Bureau of Canada, Cornerstone Research (on matters of competition and privacy in the ad tech space), Epic Games (as an expert witness to the court in Australian cases against Google a...