The Impact of Automation on Employment

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The world divides among pundits and even some economists into, well, people have always worried about it before, but they've always been wrong. Technology has been good for human beings. It's created other kinds of jobs at the same time. The second view that says this time is different because this is going to get rid of all the jobs or almost all the jobs. So tell us what we know about what’s actually happened so far.

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.