Also see:
- Future of Work Survey Findings: Focusing on the Future? –– from thefutureofwork.net
- How Technology Is Eliminating Higher-Skill Jobs — from NPR.org by Chris Arnold
- Difference Engine: Luddite legacy — from economist.com
Excerpt:
There is a good deal of truth in that. But it misses a crucial change that economists are loth to accept, though technologists have been concerned about it for several years. This is the disturbing thought that, sluggish business cycles aside, America’s current employment woes stem from a precipitous and permanent change caused by not too little technological progress, but too much. The evidence is irrefutable that computerised automation, networks and artificial intelligence (AI)—including machine-learning, language-translation, and speech- and pattern-recognition software—are beginning to render many jobs simply obsolete.
This is unlike the job destruction and creation that has taken place continuously since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as machines gradually replaced the muscle-power of human labourers and horses. Today, automation is having an impact not just on routine work, but on cognitive and even creative tasks as well. A tipping point seems to have been reached, at which AI-based automation threatens to supplant the brain-power of large swathes of middle-income employees.
Addendum on 11/22/11:
- The Coming Jobs War — by Jim Clifton
- New Data Set Reveals Health of U.S. Economy — from tuck.dartmouth.edu
Professor Matt Slaughter talks about a newly released data set that won’t get much media coverage, and yet paradoxically is one of the most important indicators of the health of the U.S. Economy.