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Re: The Insourcing Boom
The subject of robots is starting to liven up,
http://andrewmcafee.org/2012/12/the-...he-us-economy/
The subject of robots is starting to liven up,
Erik and I sent him an e-copy of RAtM after reading the post. Krugman is evidently a fast reader, because his Monday Times column, entitled “Robots and Robber Barons” had this to say:
There’s no question that in some high-profile industries, technology is displacing workers of all, or almost all, kinds. For example, one of the reasons some high-technology manufacturing has lately been moving back to the United States is that these days the most valuable piece of a computer, the motherboard, is basically made by robots, so cheap Asian labor is no longer a reason to produce them abroad.
In a recent book, “Race Against the Machine,” M.I.T.’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue that similar stories are playing out in many fields, including services like translation and legal research. What’s striking about their examples is that many of the jobs being displaced are high-skill and high-wage; the downside of technology isn’t limited to menial workers.
Still, can innovation and progress really hurt large numbers of workers, maybe even workers in general? I often encounter assertions that this can’t happen. But the truth is that it can…
We agree completely. As we wrote,In a recent book, “Race Against the Machine,” M.I.T.’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue that similar stories are playing out in many fields, including services like translation and legal research. What’s striking about their examples is that many of the jobs being displaced are high-skill and high-wage; the downside of technology isn’t limited to menial workers.
Still, can innovation and progress really hurt large numbers of workers, maybe even workers in general? I often encounter assertions that this can’t happen. But the truth is that it can…
Krugman writes that “I think it’s fair to say that the shift of income from labor to capital has not yet made it into our national discourse… but it’s time to get started, before the robots and the robber barons turn our society into something unrecognizable.”
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