

Obama: "We Need More Robots" - chopsueyar
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/us/politics/25obama.html

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swaits
Strange because only a few weeks ago he said that ATMs were killing jobs.
Hmmm, maybe he just tells each audience what they want to hear.

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mkr-hn
That's not what he said. I can't find a full quote buried under all the
editorializing, but it was a lot more nuanced than the lazy exaggeration of
"ATMs are killing jobs" you'll see in all the search results.

edit: Here it is: "the other thing that happened, though, and this goes to the
point you were just making, is there are some structural issues with our
economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient
with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM;
you don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you're using a
kiosk instead of checking in at the gate. So all these things have created
changes in the economy, and what we have to do now -- and that's what this job
council is all about -- is identifying where the jobs for the future are going
to be; how do we make sure that there's a match between what people are
getting trained for and the jobs that exist; how do we make sure that capital
is flowing into those places with the greatest opportunity. We are on the
right track. The key is figuring out how do we accelerate it"

More "machines are taking over jobs and we're failing to retrain the people
who lost them" than "ATMs are killing jobs."

