{"paper":{"title":"Crashing Waves vs. Rising Tides: Findings on AI Automation from Thousands of Worker Evaluations of Labor Market Tasks","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["econ.GN","q-fin.EC"],"primary_cat":"cs.AI","authors_text":"Adam Kuzee, Brittany S. Harris, Harry Lyu, Jonathan Rosenfeld, Martin Fleming, Matthias Mertens, Meiri Anto, Neil Thompson, Wensu Li","submitted_at":"2026-04-01T20:22:03Z","abstract_excerpt":"We propose that AI automation is a continuum between: (i) crashing waves where AI capabilities surge abruptly over small sets of tasks, and (ii) rising tides where the increase in AI capabilities is more continuous and broad-based. We test for these effects in preliminary evidence from an ongoing evaluation of AI capabilities across over 3,000 broad-based tasks derived from the U.S. Department of Labor O*NET categorization that are text-based and thus LLM-addressable. Based on more than 17,000 evaluations by workers from these jobs, we find little evidence of crashing waves (in contrast to rec"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2604.01363","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2604.01363/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}