Paul Krugman: The Rise of the Machines: It's Happening [View all]

[marmar]

The Rise of the Machines: It's Happening

Thursday, 30 April 2015 13:36
By Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed


Way back in 1996, on the 100th anniversary of The New York Times Magazine, The Times had a clever idea: They asked a number of people to write essays pretending to look backward a century from the perspective of 2096.

Sadly, most of the writers were too uptight and dignified to comply; they wrote blah-blah-the-decades-to-come stuff. But I threw myself into the assignment with a little piece titled "White Collars Turn Blue." As the title suggested, one theme of the essay was a pushback against the notion that advancing technology would result in an ever-growing demand for highly educated workers.

I argued that computers would take over many of the cognitive tasks that we find difficult, but that human beings would continue to be wanted for jobs that require common sense, including many forms of manual labor. Or as one friend described it at the time, my thesis was that we'll always need maids and gardeners.

And it's happening.

.......(snip).......

An obvious implication of these findings is that the belief that income inequality is all about, and can be fixed by, education is even more wrong than you thought. .....................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30538-the-rise-of-the-machines-it-s-happening