Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" The fact that a task cannot be computerized does not imply that computerization has no effect on that task. On the contrary, tasks that cannot be substituted by computerization are generally complemented by it. This point is as fundamental as it is overlooked. "

David Autor

Overlooked

Task

Fact

Related Quotes:

" There was a great sag in employment beginning in 2000. "

" History has suggested that the pessimists have been wrong time and time again. "

" A lot of the work in, say, construction or restaurants involves visual and motor flexibility. It also requires adaptability, in terms of answering questions, giving people directions, or taking orders. "

" I'm not yet convinced that we will face an unemployment problem created by AI. There will certainly be some occupations eliminated - drivers of vehicles, many production jobs, etc. Whether this creates mass unemployment depends on how quickly this happens. If it happens overnight, it will be a huge disruption. "

" Work is really wrapped up with identity. Work is not just money for most people. "

" Markets are, in many settings, self-organizing and 'efficient' in terms of maximizing the welfare of both buyers and sellers. "

" Work is what structures adults' lives: it gives us purpose, focus, a set of responsibilities, and an identity. So when people are not participating in the labour market, all sorts of other things often start to go wrong. "

" There's a reason I write articles and go out for good dinners: because I'm better at research than cooking. And there are people who are much better at cooking than research, so it's mutually beneficial for us to specialize. "

" Workers are basically supervisors of machines. "

" The long-term policies that will be most effective all have to do with investment: investing in ourselves, investing in opportunities, creating good schools, and creating situations where people can acquire skills that enable them to be successful. "

" The end of the 'tech bubble' in the year 2000 is, of course, widely recognized, as the NASDAQ stock index erased three-quarters of its value between 2000 and 2003. "

" I work a lot on skill demands and changes in labor markets having to do with technology and with trade as well. "

" I'm a professor of economics and associate head of the MIT Department of Economics. "

" Labor is getting a shrinking slice of a pie that's not growing very much. "

" More than any other issue, economists have kind of been boosters for trade. "

" Jobs can change a lot without there being huge changes in employment rates. "

" There is no question we are in an era of people asking, 'Is the Robocalypse upon us? "

" Workers and jobs are naturally heterogeneous, and the quality of their interaction when paired is difficult to forecast. "

" People tend to think about trade as if it's competition between companies - if Apple wins, Google loses. But that's false. Trade makes nations better off in general. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not saying that everything about trade is good and beneficial. Trade also has costs. "

" China's rise is really a kind of a world historical event. This is the largest country in the world. It has caused a wholesale substantial contraction of U.S. manufacturing employment. "

" I did a lot of blue collar work. I also worked as a temp. I did, you know, light construction and cleaning. I did clerical temping. I also fix cars and motorcycles and electronics. "

" There's always new work to do. Adjusting to the rapid pace of technological change creates real challenges, seen most clearly in our polarized labor market and the threat that it poses to economic mobility. Rising to this challenge is not automatic. It's not costless. It's not easy. But it is feasible. "

" Here's a startling fact: in the 45 years since the introduction of the automated teller machine, those vending machines that dispense cash, the number of human bank tellers employed in the United States has roughly doubled, from about a quarter of a million to a half a million. "

" Trade may raise GDP. But it does make some people worse off. "

" One would expect that a surge of new automation opportunities in highly paid work would catalyze a surge of corporate investment in computer hardware and software. Instead, the opposite occurred. "

" The last 200 years, we've had an incredible amount of automation. We have tractors that do the work that horses and people used to do on farms. We don't dig ditches by hand anymore. We don't pound tools out of wrought iron. We don't do bookkeeping with books! But this has not, in net, reduced the amount of employment. "

" There's never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value. "

" Economists have understood since the Victorian era that the main benefits of trade come from comparative advantage: the idea that people can specialize in what they're good at and then benefit from exchange. The principle is no more mysterious than specialization in the labor market. "

" Computers were programmed to swap out error-prone, inconsistent human calculation with digital perfection. "

" The Internet promises to open new channels for worker-firm communications. What are the consequences of this opening? "