Are advances in technology taking away American jobs? Studies appear to show that, in the past, technology outdated some jobs but created more employment overall. Yet there’s a new book that seems to argue that this time it is different – that in the present economic difficulties and long term unemployment, the technological changes are indeed reducing jobs – specifically – middle-class jobs.
The book is Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The two authors argue that technological changes are decreasing the ability of the economy to create new jobs, and they argue that the impact is likely to get stronger, such that when the economy fully recovers, employment levels will not themselves completely recover. A busboy might face less worries about his job than a lawyer.
McAfee, a research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, recently conducted an interview with Zachary Roth of The Lookout to explain the conclusions of the book he co-authored. McAfee noted that jobs involving "customer interfaces" are particularly at risk – clerks, cashiers, salespeople. We can purchase many things online with no human conversation nor interaction. We can check into our flights at the airport without speaking to a human being, check out at Home Depot, and conduct many routine interactions using a computer or cash machine or robot. McAfee warns that computers are rapidly increasing in the ability to handle transactions. Watson (the computer that won at Jeopardy), Google Car and Siri are just the beginning. This is a vital change to the employment picture because retail is a huge industry in the U.S., containing many middle-class jobs. McAfee says that those involved in this sector are justified in feeling nervous about the encroachment of computers.
McAfee noted that in the past, there was a huge amount of automation, but, looking at the skills for which a human worker was hired, the automation barely encroached on those skills – especially mental and cognitive skills. What galvanized the authors into writing the book, he points out, is that suddenly digital technologies are invading areas were computers never got involved before, where humans had a monopoly on the skills of complex communication – understanding and responding to human speech, translating human languages. Now we have Siri and powerful translation tools. "They're not perfect--none of these is perfect--but they're pretty good," he noted.
The book also discovers the skill of "pattern recognition," looking at large numbers of documents and finding common threads in them – or finding a pattern of deceit or malpractice. This is a skill computers have been terrible at until recently. The "Watson" computer that plays Jeopardy is an example of a computer that can go through hundreds of millions of documents and extract patterns and meaning from them. McAfee said, "So there's this large-scale, recent rapid encroachment into stuff that computers have never been good at before, and where humans were the only game in town. And when we look at what a lot of the middle class, even more educated white-collar workers do, we see them doing complex communication and patterns."
The book also discusses three ways in which automation is likely to increase inequality: skilled workers, especially in STEM fields, will mesh with computers well and salaries will go up. But for mid-skilled workers, which are the middle class, computers are encroaching on what they do. Secondly, technology rewards superstars, since they can suddenly replicate their work and sell it to millions of people. Thirdly, an area like financial services can’t keep up with the competition without having a lot of technology at its disposal.
Asked about job polarization – the trend of shrinking middle-wage and middle-skill job while both high and low skill jobs increase, McAfee referred to David Autor, who has written about this a great deal. It’s not as simple as high skill wins and low skill loses. If the work can’t be automated – walking dogs or serving as a busboy – then job security will remain. This is also true for home health aides and food service workers, "at least partly because technology’s not available to automate those kinds of jobs away."
He adds, "Our point in the book--and we want to stress it over and over again--is that technology is not bad. Technology is not the culprit here. Technology is growing the economic pie and it's improving our standard of living. We think that's fantastic. The last thing we're advocating, is, stop the innovation, shut off the machines, or do anything like that." For those average workers left behind, the book has several recommendations.
Shift education and change the skills taught to young people as well as adults in the workforce; clear the thicket of regulatory red tape; invest in infrastructure –because it is needed and because computers can’t
repair roads and bridges.
McAfee is concerned that America’s social contract is changing. The American standard was that, if you are willing to work, there is a job for you; the deck is not stacked against workers in this land of opportunity. "But," he says, "I believe that we're heading into the next chapter of our economic history, where for a lot of people who don't have exactly the right skills or have been left behind in this race against the machine, there might not be a job waiting for you, at least in the classic sense that we're used to thinking about a job. And we had better start thinking long and hard about how we react to that as a society and an economy."
Summarized by the blog author from the Zachary Roth interview at this link:
-- http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/american-workers-race-against-machine-165318939.html;_ylt=As3ScoOqjAhwnPBQ9_kg9uWdysp_;_ylu=X3oDMTRpNjFyMmI4BG1pdANGZWF0dXJlZCBCbG9nIFRoZSBVcHNob3QgTmV0d29yawRwa2cDYzQxODU5NzQtM2U4NC0zMzE4LTkwOTEtZmI4YjM3YmRkNWNkBHBvcwMzBHNlYwNNZWRpYUZlYXR1cmVkTGlzdAR2ZXIDMzNiMzg0NDAtMDBiYy0xMWUxLWJmN2YtM2NkMmZhMThjZDZi;_ylg=X3oDMTM1YWlrb2l1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYjQ1MDE0ZWQtMjA0OC0zZWNkLWI0ODMtOThmZWE4ZTc0NTFlBHBzdGNhdANvcmlnaW5hbHN8dGhlZW52b3kEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=3
The book is Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The two authors argue that technological changes are decreasing the ability of the economy to create new jobs, and they argue that the impact is likely to get stronger, such that when the economy fully recovers, employment levels will not themselves completely recover. A busboy might face less worries about his job than a lawyer.
McAfee, a research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, recently conducted an interview with Zachary Roth of The Lookout to explain the conclusions of the book he co-authored. McAfee noted that jobs involving "customer interfaces" are particularly at risk – clerks, cashiers, salespeople. We can purchase many things online with no human conversation nor interaction. We can check into our flights at the airport without speaking to a human being, check out at Home Depot, and conduct many routine interactions using a computer or cash machine or robot. McAfee warns that computers are rapidly increasing in the ability to handle transactions. Watson (the computer that won at Jeopardy), Google Car and Siri are just the beginning. This is a vital change to the employment picture because retail is a huge industry in the U.S., containing many middle-class jobs. McAfee says that those involved in this sector are justified in feeling nervous about the encroachment of computers.
McAfee noted that in the past, there was a huge amount of automation, but, looking at the skills for which a human worker was hired, the automation barely encroached on those skills – especially mental and cognitive skills. What galvanized the authors into writing the book, he points out, is that suddenly digital technologies are invading areas were computers never got involved before, where humans had a monopoly on the skills of complex communication – understanding and responding to human speech, translating human languages. Now we have Siri and powerful translation tools. "They're not perfect--none of these is perfect--but they're pretty good," he noted.
The book also discovers the skill of "pattern recognition," looking at large numbers of documents and finding common threads in them – or finding a pattern of deceit or malpractice. This is a skill computers have been terrible at until recently. The "Watson" computer that plays Jeopardy is an example of a computer that can go through hundreds of millions of documents and extract patterns and meaning from them. McAfee said, "So there's this large-scale, recent rapid encroachment into stuff that computers have never been good at before, and where humans were the only game in town. And when we look at what a lot of the middle class, even more educated white-collar workers do, we see them doing complex communication and patterns."
The book also discusses three ways in which automation is likely to increase inequality: skilled workers, especially in STEM fields, will mesh with computers well and salaries will go up. But for mid-skilled workers, which are the middle class, computers are encroaching on what they do. Secondly, technology rewards superstars, since they can suddenly replicate their work and sell it to millions of people. Thirdly, an area like financial services can’t keep up with the competition without having a lot of technology at its disposal.
Asked about job polarization – the trend of shrinking middle-wage and middle-skill job while both high and low skill jobs increase, McAfee referred to David Autor, who has written about this a great deal. It’s not as simple as high skill wins and low skill loses. If the work can’t be automated – walking dogs or serving as a busboy – then job security will remain. This is also true for home health aides and food service workers, "at least partly because technology’s not available to automate those kinds of jobs away."
He adds, "Our point in the book--and we want to stress it over and over again--is that technology is not bad. Technology is not the culprit here. Technology is growing the economic pie and it's improving our standard of living. We think that's fantastic. The last thing we're advocating, is, stop the innovation, shut off the machines, or do anything like that." For those average workers left behind, the book has several recommendations.
Shift education and change the skills taught to young people as well as adults in the workforce; clear the thicket of regulatory red tape; invest in infrastructure –because it is needed and because computers can’t
repair roads and bridges.
McAfee is concerned that America’s social contract is changing. The American standard was that, if you are willing to work, there is a job for you; the deck is not stacked against workers in this land of opportunity. "But," he says, "I believe that we're heading into the next chapter of our economic history, where for a lot of people who don't have exactly the right skills or have been left behind in this race against the machine, there might not be a job waiting for you, at least in the classic sense that we're used to thinking about a job. And we had better start thinking long and hard about how we react to that as a society and an economy."
Summarized by the blog author from the Zachary Roth interview at this link:
-- http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/american-workers-race-against-machine-165318939.html;_ylt=As3ScoOqjAhwnPBQ9_kg9uWdysp_;_ylu=X3oDMTRpNjFyMmI4BG1pdANGZWF0dXJlZCBCbG9nIFRoZSBVcHNob3QgTmV0d29yawRwa2cDYzQxODU5NzQtM2U4NC0zMzE4LTkwOTEtZmI4YjM3YmRkNWNkBHBvcwMzBHNlYwNNZWRpYUZlYXR1cmVkTGlzdAR2ZXIDMzNiMzg0NDAtMDBiYy0xMWUxLWJmN2YtM2NkMmZhMThjZDZi;_ylg=X3oDMTM1YWlrb2l1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYjQ1MDE0ZWQtMjA0OC0zZWNkLWI0ODMtOThmZWE4ZTc0NTFlBHBzdGNhdANvcmlnaW5hbHN8dGhlZW52b3kEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdl;_ylv=3
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