My summary of the paper is this: technology has always eliminated the lowest-skilled jobs, freeing people up to work more rewarding jobs. Today's information technology tools are opening up tremendous opportunities for rewarding work. So don't pay attention to the people worrying about technology putting people out of work, because they have always worried and things have always turned out fine.
I hate to be the one to make the argument that "this time it's different," but this paper has a huge blind spot in its analysis. What makes technological progress in the Information Age different is the fact that the people loosing their jobs today are the highly-educated. Paralegals are being replaced with search algorithms, doctors will soon be replaced with IBM Watsons, and my entire career as a software developer has been to automate and eliminate office jobs for people with college degrees.
You know who isn't being replaced? Fast food and retail workers. Low skill and super-high skill jobs are fine, but the middle-skill jobs are being automated out of existence. Perhaps these IT tools we all develop will eventually open up new mid-skilled employment opportunities, but when I see the anger and populism fueling Trump and Sander's campaigns, I see people who are genuinely hurting because they are being left behind. We can't just shrug and tell ourselves, "Well, it's always gotten better in the past."
I hate to be the one to make the argument that "this time it's different," but this paper has a huge blind spot in its analysis. What makes technological progress in the Information Age different is the fact that the people loosing their jobs today are the highly-educated. Paralegals are being replaced with search algorithms, doctors will soon be replaced with IBM Watsons, and my entire career as a software developer has been to automate and eliminate office jobs for people with college degrees.
You know who isn't being replaced? Fast food and retail workers. Low skill and super-high skill jobs are fine, but the middle-skill jobs are being automated out of existence. Perhaps these IT tools we all develop will eventually open up new mid-skilled employment opportunities, but when I see the anger and populism fueling Trump and Sander's campaigns, I see people who are genuinely hurting because they are being left behind. We can't just shrug and tell ourselves, "Well, it's always gotten better in the past."