Should-Read: Ricardo Hausmann: Making the Future Work for Us

Should-Read: Ricardo Hausmann: Making the Future Work for Us: “To pessimists, the introduction of… general-purpose technologies – including 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things – threatens the demand for labor… https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/technology-future-of-work-by-ricardo-hausmann-2017-09

…without new forms of social solidarity, such as a universal basic income, the future will be one of widespread destitution. To optimists, the latest technological developments, like others that have propelled humanity forward, promise to deliver unprecedented levels of prosperity. It is probably impossible at this stage to say which side is right….

Since as recently as 1980, most countries have experienced large declines in agricultural employment. In some, like Portugal, Malaysia, Turkey, and Indonesia, the share of agricultural employment declined by more than 20%. In others, like Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Estonia, Poland, Philippines, and Sri Lanka, the decline exceeded 10%. And it’s not just agriculture. According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, the share of manufacturing in GDP fell in 100 of the 124 countries reporting data since 1990….

[So]what makes today’s technology-driven shifts so scary?… Technology… depends on… embedded knowledge in tools; codified knowledge in recipes, manuals, and protocols; and tacit knowledge, or knowhow, in brains.
Most of the time, these… complement one another…. But technological progress occasionally substitutes one for another…. As David Autor of MIT has pointed out, the automatic teller machine (ATM) displaced human bank tellers, but so reduced the cost of branches that their number rose, fueling an increase in employees focused on customer relationship management…. But while it is clear which jobs new technologies displace, it is harder to anticipate how the new possibilities will be exploited…. Today we are trying to predict the nature of future work before the jobs of the future have been invented….

In the end, predicting the future is beside the point. Most countries’ future is more likely to be bright if they focus on ensuring that they can master every new technology and exploit every new opportunity that comes their way.