Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson discusses the aggregate economic value of labor tasks addressable by machine learning.
Assertion Supported
AI Cannot Fully Automate Any Single US Occupation, Study Finds
“What we found was that in most jobs, there were some tasks that machine learning could do better than humans, or would be able to if you applied the technology, and there's kind of a gold rush now to do that. But in not a single occupation, we looked at all of…”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Brynjolfsson: Next Tech Wave Will Disproportionately Hit Lower-Skill Jobs
“Our analysis that we did in a follow-up paper with Daniel Rock of Wharton suggests that as with the previous wave, the next wave of technology also will disproportionately affect some of the lower and middle skill jobs compared to the higher skill jobs”
Opinion
Society Over-Incentivizes Labor Automation Over Human Augmentation
“In the Turing Trap article, I argue that, as I said earlier, while both of those strategies can in principle be profitable, right now there are excess incentives to focus on substitution and automation, and then not enough to focus on complementing humans.”
Opinion
Davos Attendees Genuinely Want to Improve the World, Not Just Hoard Wealth
“I think a big misconception about Davos is is, you know, there's all, The plutocrats and all the wealth and power that's here. But the people who come here they really do seem sincerely interested in changing the world to make it better.”
Insight
AI Depresses Middle-Skill Wages Rather Than Creating Mass Unemployment
“It's taking certain tasks. It's not leading to mass unemployment, but it is shifting the demand for different types of skills, and so there are places where there's less demand and there's more demand, and wages in some areas are depressed when a machine can d…”
Opinion
Robotic Process Automation Was Overhyped Because It Merely Automates Existing Tasks
“I think that RPA was a bit overhyped, and so there's a bit of a bubble. There's definitely some value there, but in the end, it's what I said earlier. It's kind of focusing on taking what people are already doing, and automating that often they'll literally, l…”