What Phil Trammell thinks about AI and jobs
Economist working on the economics of transformative AI; head of economics at Epoch AI and a research scholar at Stanford.
Phil Trammell did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
5 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Phil Trammell has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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Their wordsthere's a sense in which nothing's yet been completely automated. If you look at the network-adjusted factor shares of a good, which is to say you look down the supply chain and say not just like the final step, but how much of that is done by capital and labor, but what went into the machines that can automate that final step. You'll find that labor's adding a lot of value down the supply chain.
↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 5th of 33 in this recording
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Their wordsI do think there's this qualitative shift that we I think we agree is coming, which is that there will be at least some goods whose network-adjusted capital share goes to one, right? Because the whole supply chain can be automated and there's no part in it that we care intrinsically about having a human do. Um, so that'll be a, you know, that'll be a qualitative shift. Interestingly, the implications of that shift for the overall capital share are ambiguous
↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 6th of 33 in this recording
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Their wordsthen the quantity of everything that's not a ballerina, say, goes to infinity, but our the marginal utility in that stuff goes to zero faster than the quantity is rising.
↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 7th of 33 in this recording
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Their wordsbut of course, that's not what's happened, because as we've accumulated more wealth and you know, more advanced machines and and so on, we've expanded the range of things other than singers to spend our money on, and the share spent on singers has stayed sort of negligible. Um so likewise, that's sort of my central prediction about how future unfolds, though I it could go either way.
↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 9th of 33 in this recording
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Our readingThe rules that keep judges, juries and licensed professionals human are transitional, not permanent.
Their wordsall of these frictions on um the political type decisions that we are accustomed to only trusting human you know, only having humans for like legislation and being a judge, being a jury or all the licensing thing that keeps certain professions human that all strikes me as transitional, right?
↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 18th of 33 in this recording