Does AI Cheapen Talk? Theory and Evidence from Global Entrepreneurship and Hiring

The authors thank Hemant Bhargava, Nandil Bhatia, Natalie Carlson, Avi Goldfarb, Nan Jia, Ginger Jin, Mike Luca, Nick Otis, Neil Thompson, and Emma Wiles for helpful discussion and feedback as well as seminar participants at Boston University (Digital Initiative), Johns Hopkins (Carey), University of California, Los Angeles (Anderson), and Yeshiva (Sy Syms). The authors also thank participants at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting; the Columbia Management, Analytics, and Data Conference; the Conference on Field Experiments in Strategy; the Utah Conference in Memory of John Morgan; and the Wharton AI and the Future of Work Conference for comments and suggestions. The authors further thank Daniel Creech and Noa Rosinplotz for excellent research assistance. Lastly, the authors are grateful to Anindya Ghose as well as the anonymous Associate Editor and reviewers for their thoughtful feedback. All authors contributed equally to this paper. All errors remain the authors’ own.