The machine-enabled factory jobs that replaced artisanal work paid less. "The Luddites rose up for a reason," Autor says. The Luddites, with their old-school way of making things, couldn't compete, and their prosperity fell. These machines made the textile industry much more productive made textile manufacturing much easier to do and made clothing cheaper for the masses, thereby increasing living standards for society. Quite infamously, in 1811, the so-called "Luddites," a group of disgruntled artisans in Britain, began sabotaging the textile machines they were being forced to compete with. Then came the age of machines and factories, and many artisans saw their livelihoods obliterated. These workers made a relatively good living making products, like textiles and tools, largely with their own hands. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, skilled artisans were the masters of production. And it's possible that, even in the happy economic future that Autor envisions, things will proceed in a similar way. In fact, Autor says, technology once provided a significant boost for creating and expanding the middle class.īut, it's worth noting, that story began with disruption and misery. Technological change was not always a force for greater inequality. It could be a rallying cry for this new technological era. "Let's use AI to reinstate the middle class," Autor declares. Autor is hopeful that, with the right policies to prepare and assist Americans to succeed in this new AI economy, we could make a wider array of workers much better at a whole range of jobs, lowering barriers to entry and creating new opportunities. It poses the possibility that, instead of highly skilled and college-educated workers reaping most of the benefits from the assistance of smart machines, it could be the less skilled and non-college-educated who get the biggest boost. Autor's research suggests that computers killed a range of jobs in manufacturing and offices that once provided solid opportunities to Americans without a college degree.īut new empirical evidence suggests that the age of AI could be different. ![]() Autor calls it "job polarization." Basically, computers have been great for the jobs of high-income, college-educated workers, but not so great for the jobs of everyone else. Since the 1990s, Autor and his colleagues have uncovered a mountain of evidence about this. ![]() ![]() For the last four decades, technology has been mostly a force for greater inequality.
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