Is There a Skill That Is Not Complementary?

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CNN's John Sutter says he can imagine a world in which robots do all the work for us. He asks: Is there any job that requires empathy or medical knowledge? And if not, how will we get people who are empathetic and skilled enough to fill those roles? "I don't foresee a time anywhere near ... where all the skilled activities are done by machinery," writes Sutter.

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.