Because the process of innovation often relies heavily on the combining and recombining of previous innovations, the broader and deeper the pool of accessible ideas and individuals, the more opportunities there are for innovation. We are in no danger of running out of new combinations to try. Even if technology froze today, we have more possible

and focus on working-age households, real median income has actually fallen from $60,746 to $55,821. This is the first decade to see declining median income since the figures were first compiled. Median net worth also declined this past decade when adjusted for inflation, another first.

At least since the followers of Ned Ludd smashed mechanized looms in 1811, workers have worried about automation destroying jobs. Economists have reassured them that new jobs would be created even as old ones were eliminated. For over 200 years, the economists were right.

We’ll call this the “end of work” argument, after Jeremy Rifkin’s 1995 book of the same title. In it, Rifkin laid out a bold and disturbing hypothesis: that “we are entering a new phase in world history—one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population.”

Robert Solow earned his Nobel Prize for showing that economic growth does not come from people working harder but rather from working smarter.

Cowen, Phelps, and other “stagnationists” hold that only higher rates of innovation and technical progress will lift the economy out of its current doldrums.

Whole eras of technical progress and economic growth appear to be driven by … GPTs, [which are] characterized by pervasiveness (they are used as inputs by many downstream sectors), inherent potential for technical improvements, and “innovational complementarities,” meaning that the productivity of R&D in downstream sectors increases as a

But at the same time, the computer, like all general purpose technologies, requires parallel innovation in business models, organizational processes structures, institutions, and skills. These intangible assets, comprising both organizational and human capital, are often ignored on companies’ balance sheets and in the official GDP statistics, but

Digital technologies change rapidly, but organizations and skills aren’t keeping pace. As a result, millions of people are being left behind.