Professor Tyler Cowen the future is even darker. It is not only that automation and robotisation are coming, but that there are no new worthwhile transformational technologies for them to automate. All the obvious human needs – to move, to have power, to communicate – have been solved through cars, planes, mobile phones and computers. According to Cowen, we have come to the end of the great "general purpose technologies" (technologies that transform an entire economy, such as the steam engine, electricity, the car and so on) that changed the world. There are no new transformative technologies to carry us forward, while the old activities are being robotised and automated. This is the "Great Stagnation".Professor Tyler Cowen doesn't seem to have much imagination, and the article, which disagrees with him, goes on identifying some areas "in which there will be vast job opportunities". Human health, energy, and environment come to mind immediately.
Now whether these areas will "create jobs" remains to be seen. I tend to think that jobs will go away, that an ever larger portion of the population will be unemployable (unless progress to improve human education and thinking is made), and that overall this will bring new challenges but will be a good thing (few people really wants what we now call a "job" except out of financial necessity).
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