The Impact of Breakthrough Inventions on Knowledge Production : Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment

This study explores how breakthrough inventions shape the patterns of knowledge production. Drawing on the literature on technology competition and inventive search, we argue that a breakthrough invention first increases the intensity of knowledge production as inventors seek to establish a common understanding of its significance and potential. Our empirical examination exploits an exogenous breakthrough event in artificial intelligence - the unexpected victory of AlphaGo over Go grandmaster Lee Sedol in 2016. The difference-in-differences analyses of the coding logs of GitHub reveal that developers’ deep-learning-related knowledge production through GitHub public repositories significantly increased after the victory, compared with the control group immune to the shock of this breakthrough invention. Moreover, this positive effect is more pronounced for developers with greater absorptive capacity and knowledge scope