Intelligence Create an Unemployment Crisis ?

Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will have significant implications for evolving economic systems. This has always been the case, and the repetitive nature of most jobs has historically been a good match with the capabilities of the average worker. Technology has, of course, often disrupted and even destroyed whole industries and employment sectors. In the U.S., the mechanization of agriculture vaporized millions of jobs and led workers to eventually move from farms to factories. Later, manufacturing au-T here Is An often-told story about the libertarian economist Milton Friedman. While visiting a large-scale public works project in a developing Asian nation, Friedman asked a government official why he did not see much heavy earth-moving equipment in use; instead, there were large numbers of workers with shovels. The official explained that the project was intended as a jobs program. Friedman replied with his famous and caustic question: " So why not give the workers spoons instead of shovels? " That story is a pretty good indication of the almost reflexive derision that is likely to arise in response to any serious speculation about the possibility that advancing technology could destroy jobs and cause long-term structural unemployment. Nonetheless, I think there are good reasons to be concerned that advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are rapidly pushing us toward an inflection point where the historical correlation between technological progress and broad-based prosperity is likely to break down—unless our economic system is adapted to the new reality. Why should the implications of to-day's accelerating information technology be different from the innovations of the past? I believe the answer lies in the nature of the transition that will be required for the majority of the workforce to adapt and remain relevant. Most of the work required by the economy is—on some level—funda-mentally routine in nature. By this, I do not mean the work is rote repetitive, but rather that it can be broken down into a series of discrete tasks that are relatively predictable and tend to get repeated over some time frame. The percentage of people who are paid primarily to engage in truly creative or non-routine occupations is fairly small.