How to Solve the Fair Moz Less Theorem

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One of the most beautiful and inspiring and moving videos I've ever seen is one that looks at Andrew Weill's attempt and finally a successful attempt to solve Fair Moz Less Theorem. And he can't explain what happened there. He has no idea of that intuition, that aha, that eureka moment. It applies as much to proving an incredible, you know, a century-old mathematical challenge but something as simple as walking up a flight of stairs or looking at a garbled piece of text.

David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the future of work and the role that automation and smart machines might play in the workforce. Autor stresses the importance of Michael Polanyi's insight that many of the things we know and understand cannot be easily written down or communicated. Those kinds of tacit knowledge will be difficult for smart machines to access and use. In addition, Autor argues that fundamentally, the gains from machine productivity will accrue to humans. The conversation closes with a discussion of the distributional implications of a world with a vastly larger role for smart machines.