The Onrushing Wave

Douglas_Reay

There's a long article in this week's The Economist:

The onrushing wave

discussing the effect of changing technology upon the amount of employment available in different sectors of the economy.

Sample paragraph from it:

The case for a highly disruptive period of economic growth is made by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, professors at MIT, in “The Second Machine Age”, a book to be published later this month. Like the first great era of industrialisation, they argue, it should deliver enormous benefits—but not without a period of disorienting and uncomfortable change. Their argument rests on an underappreciated aspect of the exponential growth in chip processing speed, memory capacity and other computer metrics: that the amount of progress computers will make in the next few years is always equal to the progress they have made since the very beginning. Mr Brynjolfsson and Mr McAfee reckon that the main bottleneck on innovation is the time it takes society to sort through the many combinations and permutations of new technologies and business models.

(There's a summary online of their previous book: Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy)

What do people think are society's practical options for coping with this change?

There's a long article in this week's The Economist:

The onrushing wave

discussing the effect of changing technology upon the amount of employment available in different sectors of the economy.

Sample paragraph from it:

The case for a highly disruptive period of economic growth is made by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, professors at MIT, in “The Second Machine Age”, a book to be published later this month. Like the first great era of industrialisation, they argue, it should deliver enormous benefits—but not without a period of disorienting and uncomfortable change. Their argument rests on an underappreciated aspect of the exponential growth in chip processing speed, memory capacity and other computer metrics: that the amount of progress computers will make in the next few years is always equal to the progress they have made since the very beginning. Mr Brynjolfsson and Mr McAfee reckon that the main bottleneck on innovation is the time it takes society to sort through the many combinations and permutations of new technologies and business models.

What do people think are society's practical options for coping with this change?

I think there is much to what Yudkowsky is saying on the topic in this post:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/hh4/the_robots_ai_and_unemployment_antifaq/

He is arguing that the high levels of unemployment we see today are not due to technological progress but rather to the financial crisis.

If it takes 1 year to re-train a person to the level of employability in a new profession, and every year 2% of jobs are automated out of existence, then you'll get a minimum of 2% unemployment.

If it takes 4 years to re-train a person to the level of employability in a new profession, and every year 2% of jobs are automated out of existence, then you'll get a minimum of 8% unemployment.

If it takes 4 years to re-train a person to the level of employability in a new profession, and every year 5% of jobs are automated out of existence, then you'll get a minim... (read more)