Choose an institution to see its records and dossier, or choose a topic.
Through year 2027 · all records, including scheduled dates 2026 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2008 2005 1965 Show Organisations and infrastructure All types Organisation Person Document Concept Infrastructure Public body Reset filters
94 people, organisations and other records · 122 relationships · 34 claims about a valueEverything recorded up to the chosen year, whether or not still in effect · Undated records included
Claim and evidence Close ×
Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth” (2015-09) bears on M05. In the accelerationist case of the model, information capital substitutes so well for labour that all income eventually accrues to capital owners, the reverse of Keynes's 'euthanasia of the rentier'. Nordhaus states that the Singularity would require AI to 'encompass all human activities' and notes that non-routine tasks change in response to AI, leaving immunity of other tasks 'an open question'. Nordhaus quotes Simon's 1965 statement of technological radicalism and contrasts it with Simon's moderate productivity expectation. Nordhaus reports that Simon, despite his capability forecast, did not expect accelerating productivity growth. Copy claim link
Copy claim reference
Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editor Stated in source Supported
Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 2015-09 · publication Role Context Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Scope of the passage A model scenario under stated conditions, not the author’s own claim. Missing element (M05-18) A capital share tending to one does not imply every present and future task is performed more cheaply by machines; the continuation explicitly retains well-paid workers. (M05-19) Raises the role of evolving (new) tasks but neither asserts nor rules out machines performing them more cheaply; treats it as an empirical question of substitutability. (M05-41) A relayed capability forecast by Simon (1965), not a claim about cost relative to labour; in the same passage Nordhaus reports that Simon expected only a "continuing, but not greatly accelerated, rise in productivity". (M05-42) A relayed productivity expectation; it does not address cost relative to labour in all tasks. Tier Tier 1. NBER working paper (core venue); Nordhaus an economist. Conditions Elasticity of substitution between information capital and labour bounded above one; rapid capital-augmenting technical change. Scope and limits (First passage) NBER Working Paper 21547, September 2015 (version dated September 1, 2015); not pre-2015. A model scenario, not the author's forecast: his empirical tests conclude 'the Singularity is not near' (pdf p. 44). The next sentence reads "Workers would be well-paid but would control a vanishing part of national output". Bears on M05 (relation changed from articulates on 2026-10-12): a capital share tending to one does not establish that machines perform every present and future task more cheaply than labour. It no longer holds M05's earliest-located role; the model-scenario flag and context restriction stay. A model result under stated conditions, not the author's own claim that machines will do every task (maintainer decision of 2026-10-11). Context-only. (Second passage) NBER Working Paper 21547, September 2015 (version dated September 1, 2015); not pre-2015. (Third passage) Relay: Simon's wording as quoted by Nordhaus (2015) with page references to The Shape of Automation (1965). The 1965 original was not retrieved, so this is not Simon's checked wording. Armer (1966) relays the same forecast (his passage recorded as bearing on M05). (Fourth passage) The passage reports a view the author does not state as their own. A Simon quotation (1965, p. xiii) relayed by Nordhaus (2015), not Nordhaus's own claim. Simon's original was not retrieved or read.
The evidence 04 primary source Supports the claim
Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth ↗ NBER Working Paper 21547 · 2015-09
Copy source reference
Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
Copy APA
Download BibTeX Download RIS Download CSL-JSON
Source excerpt · shown only with its context “the accelerationist case leads to the opposite outcome, where the share of capital goes to unity. In this outcome, we thus would see the euthanasia of the laboring classes” Read it with this context. Conditional scenario: Nordhaus's own tests mostly REJECT imminent Singularity. The next sentence: 'Workers would be well-paid but would control a vanishing part of national output'. 'Euthanasia' is a play on Keynes's 'euthanasia of the rentier', not literal immiseration.
Why: Fresh-context audit (A2) judged that the quotation misleads when shown alone.
Location in source pdf page 40; Section X(d), Interpretations and Elaborations: The euthanasia of the laboring classes (printed p. 37)
Machine-checked · 2026-10-14
Source details and check notes Authors William D. Nordhaus Version Full text. Current copy retrieved directly on 2026-10-09; no archive capture (Wayback unreachable), so earlier bytes are not authenticated. SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062. Journal version not retrieved. Nordhaus, W. D. (2021). Are we approaching an economic singularity? Information technology and the future of economic growth. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 13(1), 299–332. https://doi.org/10.1257/mac.20170105 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-09 Language English (en) Attribution William D. Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth”, NBER Working Paper 21547, 2015-09. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage M05-18 (research/economics-mainstream). The quotation (29 words) matched the retrieved current copy (SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062) in the pack's verification. Re-checked at admission on 2026-10-14 against a copy retrieved that day. primary source Supports the claim
Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth ↗ NBER Working Paper 21547 · 2015-09
Copy source reference
Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
Copy APA
Download BibTeX Download RIS Download CSL-JSON
Source excerpt “Whereas computerized AI might do many routine tasks, the non-routine tasks are less easily programmed, and they evolve over time in response to the economic environment, including the environment of artificial intelligence itself.” Location in source pdf page 44; Section XI, Concluding Comments on Singularity (printed p. 41)
Machine-checked · 2026-10-14
Source details and check notes Authors William D. Nordhaus Version Full text. Current copy retrieved directly on 2026-10-09; no archive capture (Wayback unreachable), so earlier bytes are not authenticated. SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062. Journal version not retrieved. Nordhaus, W. D. (2021). Are we approaching an economic singularity? Information technology and the future of economic growth. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 13(1), 299–332. https://doi.org/10.1257/mac.20170105 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-09 Language English (en) Attribution William D. Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth”, NBER Working Paper 21547, 2015-09. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage M05-19 (research/economics-mainstream). The quotation (33 words) matched the retrieved current copy (SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062) in the pack's verification. Re-checked at admission on 2026-10-14 against a copy retrieved that day. primary source Supports the claim
Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth ↗ NBER Working Paper 21547 · 2015-09
Copy source reference
Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
Copy APA
Download BibTeX Download RIS Download CSL-JSON
Source excerpt · shown only with its context “He wrote, "I believe that, in our time, computers will be able to do anything a man can do." (p. xii-xiii)” Read it with this context. Simon's productivity statement relayed in the next sentence of Nordhaus (M05-42).
Why: Shown alone, Simon's capability claim reads as a prediction of mass replacement.
Location in source pdf page 9
Machine-checked · 2026-10-14
Source details and check notes Authors William D. Nordhaus Version Full text. Current copy retrieved directly on 2026-10-09; no archive capture (Wayback unreachable), so earlier bytes are not authenticated. SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062. Journal version not retrieved. Nordhaus, W. D. (2021). Are we approaching an economic singularity? Information technology and the future of economic growth. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 13(1), 299–332. https://doi.org/10.1257/mac.20170105 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-09 Language English (en) Attribution William D. Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth”, NBER Working Paper 21547, 2015-09. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage M05-41 (research/economics-mainstream). The quotation (21 words) matched the retrieved current copy (SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062) in the pack's verification. Re-checked at admission on 2026-10-14 against a copy retrieved that day. primary source Supports the claim
Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth ↗ NBER Working Paper 21547 · 2015-09
Copy source reference
Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
Copy APA
Download BibTeX Download RIS Download CSL-JSON
Source excerpt · shown only with its context “holding that "computers and automation will contribute to a continuing, but not greatly accelerated, rise in productivity." (p. xiii)” Read it with this context. It is a Simon quotation relayed by Nordhaus, not Nordhaus's own claim.
Why: Misleads when shown alone (GPT cross-family check of 2026-10-12, accepted by the maintainer on 2026-10-12).
Location in source pdf page 9
Machine-checked · 2026-10-14
Source details and check notes Authors William D. Nordhaus Version Full text. Current copy retrieved directly on 2026-10-09; no archive capture (Wayback unreachable), so earlier bytes are not authenticated. SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062. Journal version not retrieved. Nordhaus, W. D. (2021). Are we approaching an economic singularity? Information technology and the future of economic growth. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 13(1), 299–332. https://doi.org/10.1257/mac.20170105 Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-09 Language English (en) Attribution William D. Nordhaus, “Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth”, NBER Working Paper 21547, 2015-09. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage M05-42 (research/economics-mainstream). The quotation (19 words) matched the retrieved current copy (SHA-256 cb481e5e99ef9bad8575d9150bcc8464eda4904722cc5048389ab6159858b062) in the pack's verification. Re-checked at admission on 2026-10-14 against a copy retrieved that day. Status and meaning Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor . An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document bears on the proposition without meeting its criterion; the record names the missing element. It is not an articulation and implies no influence.
Date. Cover "September 2015". Checked in a current copy; an archive capture was not available, so earlier bytes are not authenticated.
Record ID ec-m05-nordhaus-2015-economic-singularity-b