Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

the impact that accelerating progress has on the job market and the overall economy is poised to defy much of the conventional wisdom about how technology and economics intertwine.

compensated for the perceived increase in safety by taking more risks.14 This “Peltzman effect”

Declining Labor Force Participation

“Bowley’s Law.”

Like water and sanitation systems or the nation’s electrical infrastructure, the health care system does not stand alone—it is a systemic industry whose efficient operation is critical to both the economy and society. In many cases, the provision of a utility service leads to natural monopoly scenarios. In other words, it is most efficient if only

While mobile phones are unquestionably of great value to third-world fishermen, there is little evidence to suggest that average citizens in developed countries—or, for that matter, even in poor countries—will succeed in deriving a meaningful income from their smart phones.

One of the most important lessons of history is that there is a powerful symbiosis between technological progress and a well-functioning market economy. Healthy markets create the incentives that lead to meaningful innovation and ever-increasing productivity, and this has been the driving force behind our prosperity.

The second transformative force is likely to be the explosive growth of the fully automated self-service retail sector—or, in other words, intelligent vending machines and kiosks.

A single-payer system is, in practice, always assumed to be run by the government, but in theory this does not have to be the case.