
Race Against the Machine

The threat of technological unemployment is real. To understand this threat, we'll define three overlapping sets of winners and losers that technical change creates: (1) high-skilled vs. low-skilled workers, (2) superstars vs. everyone else, and (3) capital vs. labor.
Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
soar to $1 billion. However, the wealth of the median customer, the one exactly in the middle of the distribution, wouldn’t change at all.
Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
Why has the scourge of unemployment been so persistent? Analysts offer three alternative explanations: cyclicality, stagnation, and the “end of work.”
Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
We don’t believe in the coming obsolescence of all human workers. In fact, some human skills are more valuable than ever, even in an age of incredibly powerful and capable digital technologies. But other skills have become worthless, and people who hold the wrong ones now find that they have little to offer employers. They’re losing the race agains
... See moreErik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
Examining other statistics reveals a deeper, more widespread problem. Not only are income and wages—the price of labor—suffering, but so is the number of jobs or the quantity of labor demanded (Figure 3.4). The last decade was the first decade since the depths of the Great Depression that saw no net job creation.
Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
advanced pattern recognition and complex communication, for now humans still hold the high ground in each of these areas. Experienced doctors, for example, make diagnoses by comparing the body of medical knowledge they’ve accumulated against patients’ lab results and descriptions of symptoms, and also by employing the advanced subconscious pattern
... See moreErik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
These results will be felt across virtually every task, job, and industry. Such versatility is a key feature of general purpose technologies (GPTs), a term economists assign to a small group of technological innovations so powerful that they interrupt and accelerate the normal march of economic progress. Steam power, electricity, and the internal c
... See moreErik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
It's interesting that the general purpose technologies are powerful because of their versatility
Even the low wages earned by factory workers in China have not insulated them from being undercut by new machinery and the complementary organizational and institutional changes. For instance, Terry Gou, the founder and chairman of the electronics manufacturer Foxconn, announced this year a plan to purchase 1 million robots over the next three year
... See moreErik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee • Race Against the Machine
They think it’s because the pace of technological innovation has slowed down. We think it’s because the pace has sped up so much that it’s left a lot of people behind. Many workers, in short, are losing the race against the machine.