Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Upending that traditional approach to problem solving, and unleashing all the information trapped in individual minds or published in obscure medical journals, likely represents one of the most important potential benefits of artificial intelligence and big data as applied to medicine.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
A basic, or guaranteed minimum, income is far from a new idea. In the context of the contemporary American political landscape, a guaranteed income is likely to be disparaged as “socialism” and a massive expansion of the welfare state.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
It is also critical to understand that health care spending is highly concentrated among a tiny number of very sick people.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Among the forces poised to shape the future, information technology stands alone in terms of its exponential progress.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Manufacturing jobs in the United States currently account for well under 10 percent of total employment. As a result, manufacturing robots and reshoring are likely to have a fairly marginal impact on the overall job market. The story will be very different in developing countries like China, where employment is far more focused in the manufacturing
... See moreMartin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
a 2013 study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne at the University of Oxford concluded that occupations amounting to nearly half of US total employment may be vulnerable to automation within roughly the next two decades.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Financialization
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
While lower-skill occupations will no doubt continue to be affected, a great many college-educated, white-collar workers are going to discover that their jobs, too, are squarely in the sights as software automation and predictive algorithms advance rapidly in capability.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
History suggests that the ideal is a mildly inflationary trajectory where incomes grow faster than consumer prices, making the things we want to buy more affordable over time.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
The main idea behind comparative advantage is that you should always be able to find a job, provided you specialize in the thing at which you are “least bad” relative to other people. By doing so, you offer others the