Executive summary: The post argues against the idea that accumulating knowledge inherently makes new discoveries more difficult, explaining why this “burden of knowledge” concept is unlikely to account for much of the slowing productivity growth.
Key points:
Knowledge is often not cumulative—new models can completely replace old ones, eliminating the need to learn them.
Specialization does not always hinder innovation—it allows trading knowledge to access tools that accelerate progress.
Empirical evidence of narrowing research can be explained by institutional decay rather than a burden of knowledge.
New fields and tools can cut through any burden—it is not a general rule more knowledge must be learned to create something new.
The burden of knowledge likely does not explain much of the divergence between R&D inputs and productivity outputs.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The post argues against the idea that accumulating knowledge inherently makes new discoveries more difficult, explaining why this “burden of knowledge” concept is unlikely to account for much of the slowing productivity growth.
Key points:
Knowledge is often not cumulative—new models can completely replace old ones, eliminating the need to learn them.
Specialization does not always hinder innovation—it allows trading knowledge to access tools that accelerate progress.
Empirical evidence of narrowing research can be explained by institutional decay rather than a burden of knowledge.
New fields and tools can cut through any burden—it is not a general rule more knowledge must be learned to create something new.
The burden of knowledge likely does not explain much of the divergence between R&D inputs and productivity outputs.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.