The global economy is far beyond science to fully understand in real time, and same is true of the gigantic US economy. One of the areas of great controversy, is what will happen as automation heats up with tech AI change curve now pointing almost straight up.. Does it change what types of jobs we need to train the workforce in, IE , “knowledge economy jobs”, or does it mean, despite retraining, there will be many who can’t find a job because a robot is doing it?
A study described in NYTimes says the jobs and pay will be harder to get when automation really gets going, and it’s getting going now or real soon now, at a tremendous pace of change. Hopefully this study is only one part of understanding a very big puzzle, as it’s the “bummer” version of AI future.
PSA imagines jobs in the knowledge economy will include a lot of “Gigjobs” where online aggregates both demand, and worker access to demand, for services rendered. A sort of DIY economy. Clearly it would “work” differently than what we have presently.
Personal cost of living would be lower as we each take on more of our big ticket costs like education and healthcare. Income of “dollars” would be greatly diminished as well, as we try to assemble ala carte a package of Gigjobs that helps bring in income. More of a “barter” type economy writ very large, perhaps a world online barter economy, if you will.
Failing achieving that in say 5 -10 years, we are going to probably have a lot of people with inadequate incomes and jobs. Which we already have, but worse, maybe a lot worse.
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For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study to quantify large, direct, negative effects of robots.