
MIT Economist David Autor on the Future of Work and Polanyi's Paradox - ryan_j_naughton
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/10/david_autor_on.html
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drcode
For someone who's a techno-libertarian, like myself, it's hard to have a good
response to the "computers are taking all our jobs" argument.

The most straightforward response is "It will PROBABLY turn out OK, new jobs
will probably show up", but that just isn't a very satisfying retort, even if
it's the truth.

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calibraxis
Perhaps you could tell them that the question betrays a deep misconception. We
can use computers to decrease and deskill employment. Or we could have fewer
hours at greater pay, with less drudgery for the remaining work.

(It's like energy research. Want nukes, or sustainable or clean energy? That's
up to society to decide.)

Of course, passive people who stick to the status quo means we get bad
outcomes.

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nhaehnle
> Or we could have fewer hours at greater pay, with less drudgery for the
> remaining work.

Right. However, GP may have alluded to the question of whether such an outcome
is compatible with libertarianism. Does _that_ question betray a deep
misconception?

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vacri
Unfortunate to discover that this new-to-me paradox isn't a paradox at all.
"Some things we know/understand can't be written down [easily], thus we know
more than we can explicitly explain". It's not counter-intuitive at all, and
doesn't oppose itself in any way.

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drcode
The paradox is the part where things that are hard to write down (i.e. do
laundry, trim your fingernails, make a sandwich) seem extremely easy and seem
like the first things machines would have taken over, whereas things that are
easy to write down (playing chess, arming nuclear missles, diagnose a tumor)
seem very hard but are relatively easy for a computer to do.

(And yes, it still doesn't qualify as a paradox, in the mathematical sense.)

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forthefuture
I don't know, the first group of things is wholly physical, and the second
group is wholly digital. It's incomparably easier to build things (and
rightfully so) that never touch the physical world because you don't have to
build any physical hardware manufacturing infrastructure.

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mrfusion
Offtopic but is there a way to load these kind of one-off podcasts onto an
iPhone?

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mrow84
You can download the episode, without subscribing, from the EconTalk "page",
or whatever it's called, in the iTunes store.

