Will automation take away all our jobs?
-
0:01 - 0:03Here's a startling fact:
-
0:03 - 0:07in the 45 years since the introduction
of the automated teller machine, -
0:07 - 0:10those vending machines that dispense cash,
-
0:10 - 0:13the number of human bank tellers
employed in the United States -
0:13 - 0:14has roughly doubled,
-
0:14 - 0:17from about a quarter of a million
to a half a million. -
0:18 - 0:21A quarter of a million in 1970
to about a half a million today, -
0:21 - 0:25with 100,000 added since the year 2000.
-
0:25 - 0:27These facts, revealed in a recent book
-
0:27 - 0:30by Boston University
economist James Bessen, -
0:30 - 0:33raise an intriguing question:
-
0:33 - 0:35what are all those tellers doing,
-
0:35 - 0:39and why hasn't automation
eliminated their employment by now? -
0:39 - 0:40If you think about it,
-
0:40 - 0:43many of the great inventions
of the last 200 years -
0:43 - 0:46were designed to replace human labor.
-
0:47 - 0:48Tractors were developed
-
0:49 - 0:53to substitute mechanical power
for human physical toil. -
0:53 - 0:55Assembly lines were engineered
-
0:55 - 0:59to replace inconsistent human handiwork
-
0:59 - 1:01with machine perfection.
-
1:01 - 1:04Computers were programmed to swap out
-
1:04 - 1:06error-prone, inconsistent
human calculation -
1:06 - 1:08with digital perfection.
-
1:09 - 1:11These inventions have worked.
-
1:11 - 1:13We no longer dig ditches by hand,
-
1:13 - 1:15pound tools out of wrought iron
-
1:15 - 1:17or do bookkeeping using actual books.
-
1:18 - 1:23And yet, the fraction of US adults
employed in the labor market -
1:23 - 1:26is higher now in 2016
-
1:26 - 1:29than it was 125 years ago, in 1890,
-
1:29 - 1:32and it's risen in just about every decade
-
1:32 - 1:34in the intervening 125 years.
-
1:35 - 1:36This poses a paradox.
-
1:37 - 1:40Our machines increasingly
do our work for us. -
1:40 - 1:44Why doesn't this make our labor redundant
and our skills obsolete? -
1:44 - 1:48Why are there still so many jobs?
-
1:48 - 1:49(Laughter)
-
1:49 - 1:52I'm going to try to answer
that question tonight, -
1:52 - 1:56and along the way, I'm going to tell you
what this means for the future of work -
1:56 - 2:00and the challenges that automation
does and does not pose -
2:00 - 2:01for our society.
-
2:03 - 2:04Why are there so many jobs?
-
2:06 - 2:09There are actually two fundamental
economic principles at stake. -
2:09 - 2:12One has to do with human genius
-
2:12 - 2:13and creativity.
-
2:13 - 2:16The other has to do
with human insatiability, -
2:16 - 2:18or greed, if you like.
-
2:18 - 2:20I'm going to call the first of these
the O-ring principle, -
2:20 - 2:23and it determines
the type of work that we do. -
2:23 - 2:25The second principle
is the never-get-enough principle, -
2:25 - 2:29and it determines how many jobs
there actually are. -
2:29 - 2:32Let's start with the O-ring.
-
2:32 - 2:35ATMs, automated teller machines,
-
2:35 - 2:38had two countervailing effects
on bank teller employment. -
2:38 - 2:41As you would expect,
they replaced a lot of teller tasks. -
2:41 - 2:43The number of tellers per branch
fell by about a third. -
2:44 - 2:48But banks quickly discovered that it
also was cheaper to open new branches, -
2:48 - 2:51and the number of bank branches
increased by about 40 percent -
2:51 - 2:53in the same time period.
-
2:53 - 2:57The net result was more branches
and more tellers. -
2:57 - 3:01But those tellers were doing
somewhat different work. -
3:01 - 3:05As their routine,
cash-handling tasks receded, -
3:05 - 3:07they became less like checkout clerks
-
3:07 - 3:09and more like salespeople,
-
3:09 - 3:11forging relationships with customers,
-
3:11 - 3:12solving problems
-
3:12 - 3:16and introducing them to new products
like credit cards, loans and investments: -
3:16 - 3:20more tellers doing
a more cognitively demanding job. -
3:21 - 3:22There's a general principle here.
-
3:23 - 3:25Most of the work that we do
-
3:25 - 3:28requires a multiplicity of skills,
-
3:29 - 3:32and brains and brawn,
-
3:32 - 3:36technical expertise and intuitive mastery,
-
3:36 - 3:39perspiration and inspiration
in the words of Thomas Edison. -
3:39 - 3:43In general, automating
some subset of those tasks -
3:43 - 3:45doesn't make the other ones unnecessary.
-
3:45 - 3:48In fact, it makes them more important.
-
3:49 - 3:51It increases their economic value.
-
3:51 - 3:53Let me give you a stark example.
-
3:53 - 3:57In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger
-
3:57 - 3:59exploded and crashed back down to Earth
-
3:59 - 4:01less than two minutes after takeoff.
-
4:02 - 4:05The cause of that crash, it turned out,
-
4:05 - 4:08was an inexpensive rubber O-ring
in the booster rocket -
4:08 - 4:11that had frozen on the launchpad
the night before -
4:11 - 4:15and failed catastrophically
moments after takeoff. -
4:15 - 4:17In this multibillion dollar enterprise
-
4:18 - 4:19that simple rubber O-ring
-
4:19 - 4:22made the difference
between mission success -
4:22 - 4:25and the calamitous death
of seven astronauts. -
4:26 - 4:29An ingenious metaphor
for this tragic setting -
4:29 - 4:32is the O-ring production function,
-
4:32 - 4:34named by Harvard economist Michael Kremer
-
4:34 - 4:36after the Challenger disaster.
-
4:36 - 4:39The O-ring production function
conceives of the work -
4:39 - 4:41as a series of interlocking steps,
-
4:41 - 4:42links in a chain.
-
4:42 - 4:46Every one of those links must hold
for the mission to succeed. -
4:46 - 4:48If any of them fails,
-
4:48 - 4:52the mission, or the product
or the service, -
4:52 - 4:53comes crashing down.
-
4:54 - 4:58This precarious situation
has a surprisingly positive implication, -
4:59 - 5:00which is that improvements
-
5:00 - 5:03in the reliability
of any one link in the chain -
5:03 - 5:07increases the value
of improving any of the other links. -
5:07 - 5:12Concretely, if most of the links
are brittle and prone to breakage, -
5:12 - 5:15the fact that your link
is not that reliable -
5:15 - 5:16is not that important.
-
5:16 - 5:18Probably something else will break anyway.
-
5:18 - 5:22But as all the other links
become robust and reliable, -
5:22 - 5:26the importance of your link
becomes more essential. -
5:26 - 5:28In the limit, everything depends upon it.
-
5:29 - 5:32The reason the O-ring was critical
to space shuttle Challenger -
5:32 - 5:35is because everything else
worked perfectly. -
5:35 - 5:38If the Challenger were
kind of the space era equivalent -
5:38 - 5:41of Microsoft Windows 2000 --
-
5:41 - 5:43(Laughter)
-
5:43 - 5:45the reliability of the O-ring
wouldn't have mattered -
5:45 - 5:47because the machine would have crashed.
-
5:47 - 5:49(Laughter)
-
5:50 - 5:52Here's the broader point.
-
5:52 - 5:55In much of the work that we do,
we are the O-rings. -
5:55 - 5:59Yes, ATMs could do
certain cash-handling tasks -
5:59 - 6:02faster and better than tellers,
-
6:02 - 6:04but that didn't make tellers superfluous.
-
6:04 - 6:07It increased the importance
of their problem-solving skills -
6:07 - 6:10and their relationships with customers.
-
6:10 - 6:13The same principle applies
if we're building a building, -
6:13 - 6:16if we're diagnosing
and caring for a patient, -
6:16 - 6:19or if we are teaching a class
-
6:19 - 6:22to a roomful of high schoolers.
-
6:22 - 6:24As our tools improve,
-
6:24 - 6:26technology magnifies our leverage
-
6:26 - 6:30and increases the importance
of our expertise -
6:30 - 6:32and our judgment and our creativity.
-
6:33 - 6:35And that brings me
to the second principle: -
6:36 - 6:37never get enough.
-
6:38 - 6:41You may be thinking, OK, O-ring, got it,
-
6:41 - 6:44that says the jobs that people do
will be important. -
6:44 - 6:47They can't be done by machines,
but they still need to be done. -
6:47 - 6:50But that doesn't tell me
how many jobs there will need to be. -
6:50 - 6:52If you think about it,
isn't it kind of self-evident -
6:52 - 6:55that once we get sufficiently
productive at something, -
6:55 - 6:57we've basically
worked our way out of a job? -
6:57 - 7:00In 1900, 40 percent of all US employment
-
7:00 - 7:01was on farms.
-
7:01 - 7:03Today, it's less than two percent.
-
7:03 - 7:05Why are there so few farmers today?
-
7:05 - 7:07It's not because we're eating less.
-
7:07 - 7:10(Laughter)
-
7:10 - 7:13A century of productivity
growth in farming -
7:13 - 7:15means that now,
a couple of million farmers -
7:15 - 7:18can feed a nation of 320 million.
-
7:18 - 7:19That's amazing progress,
-
7:19 - 7:24but it also means there are
only so many O-ring jobs left in farming. -
7:24 - 7:27So clearly, technology can eliminate jobs.
-
7:27 - 7:28Farming is only one example.
-
7:28 - 7:30There are many others like it.
-
7:31 - 7:35But what's true about a single product
or service or industry -
7:35 - 7:38has never been true
about the economy as a whole. -
7:38 - 7:41Many of the industries
in which we now work -- -
7:41 - 7:43health and medicine,
-
7:43 - 7:45finance and insurance,
-
7:45 - 7:47electronics and computing --
-
7:48 - 7:50were tiny or barely existent
a century ago. -
7:50 - 7:53Many of the products
that we spend a lot of our money on -- -
7:53 - 7:55air conditioners, sport utility vehicles,
-
7:55 - 7:57computers and mobile devices --
-
7:57 - 7:59were unattainably expensive,
-
7:59 - 8:01or just hadn't been invented
a century ago. -
8:02 - 8:07As automation frees our time,
increases the scope of what is possible, -
8:07 - 8:10we invent new products,
new ideas, new services -
8:10 - 8:12that command our attention,
-
8:12 - 8:13occupy our time
-
8:13 - 8:15and spur consumption.
-
8:16 - 8:19You may think some
of these things are frivolous -- -
8:19 - 8:22extreme yoga, adventure tourism,
-
8:22 - 8:23Pokémon GO --
-
8:23 - 8:24and I might agree with you.
-
8:25 - 8:28But people desire these things,
and they're willing to work hard for them. -
8:28 - 8:31The average worker in 2015
-
8:31 - 8:35wanting to attain
the average living standard in 1915 -
8:35 - 8:38could do so by working
just 17 weeks a year, -
8:38 - 8:40one third of the time.
-
8:40 - 8:42But most people don't choose to do that.
-
8:42 - 8:44They are willing to work hard
-
8:44 - 8:48to harvest the technological bounty
that is available to them. -
8:48 - 8:53Material abundance has never
eliminated perceived scarcity. -
8:53 - 8:55In the words of economist
Thorstein Veblen, -
8:55 - 8:58invention is the mother of necessity.
-
9:00 - 9:01Now ...
-
9:01 - 9:03So if you accept these two principles,
-
9:03 - 9:06the O-ring principle
and the never-get-enough principle, -
9:06 - 9:08then you agree with me.
-
9:08 - 9:09There will be jobs.
-
9:10 - 9:12Does that mean there's
nothing to worry about? -
9:12 - 9:15Automation, employment, robots and jobs --
-
9:15 - 9:16it'll all take care of itself?
-
9:17 - 9:18No.
-
9:18 - 9:20That is not my argument.
-
9:20 - 9:23Automation creates wealth
-
9:23 - 9:26by allowing us to do
more work in less time. -
9:26 - 9:27There is no economic law
-
9:27 - 9:30that says that we
will use that wealth well, -
9:30 - 9:32and that is worth worrying about.
-
9:33 - 9:35Consider two countries,
-
9:35 - 9:37Norway and Saudi Arabia.
-
9:37 - 9:38Both oil-rich nations,
-
9:38 - 9:42it's like they have money
spurting out of a hole in the ground. -
9:42 - 9:44(Laughter)
-
9:44 - 9:49But they haven't used that wealth
equally well to foster human prosperity, -
9:49 - 9:50human prospering.
-
9:50 - 9:53Norway is a thriving democracy.
-
9:53 - 9:57By and large, its citizens
work and play well together. -
9:57 - 10:00It's typically numbered
between first and fourth -
10:00 - 10:03in rankings of national happiness.
-
10:03 - 10:05Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy
-
10:05 - 10:09in which many citizens
lack a path for personal advancement. -
10:09 - 10:12It's typically ranked 35th
among nations in happiness, -
10:13 - 10:15which is low for such a wealthy nation.
-
10:15 - 10:16Just by way of comparison,
-
10:16 - 10:19the US is typically ranked
around 12th or 13th. -
10:19 - 10:21The difference between these two countries
-
10:22 - 10:23is not their wealth
-
10:23 - 10:25and it's not their technology.
-
10:25 - 10:26It's their institutions.
-
10:27 - 10:30Norway has invested to build a society
-
10:30 - 10:33with opportunity and economic mobility.
-
10:33 - 10:35Saudi Arabia has raised living standards
-
10:35 - 10:39while frustrating
many other human strivings. -
10:39 - 10:41Two countries, both wealthy,
-
10:41 - 10:43not equally well off.
-
10:44 - 10:48And this brings me
to the challenge that we face today, -
10:48 - 10:50the challenge that
automation poses for us. -
10:50 - 10:53The challenge is not
that we're running out of work. -
10:53 - 10:55The US has added 14 million jobs
-
10:55 - 10:57since the depths of the Great Recession.
-
10:57 - 11:00The challenge is that many of those jobs
-
11:00 - 11:01are not good jobs,
-
11:01 - 11:04and many citizens
cannot qualify for the good jobs -
11:04 - 11:05that are being created.
-
11:06 - 11:09Employment growth in the United States
and in much of the developed world -
11:09 - 11:11looks something like a barbell
-
11:11 - 11:14with increasing poundage
on either end of the bar. -
11:14 - 11:15On the one hand,
-
11:15 - 11:18you have high-education, high-wage jobs
-
11:18 - 11:22like doctors and nurses,
programmers and engineers, -
11:22 - 11:24marketing and sales managers.
-
11:24 - 11:27Employment is robust in these jobs,
employment growth. -
11:27 - 11:31Similarly, employment growth
is robust in many low-skill, -
11:31 - 11:34low-education jobs like food service,
-
11:34 - 11:36cleaning, security,
-
11:36 - 11:37home health aids.
-
11:38 - 11:41Simultaneously, employment is shrinking
-
11:41 - 11:45in many middle-education,
middle-wage, middle-class jobs, -
11:45 - 11:49like blue-collar production
and operative positions -
11:49 - 11:52and white-collar
clerical and sales positions. -
11:52 - 11:54The reasons behind this contracting middle
-
11:54 - 11:56are not mysterious.
-
11:56 - 11:58Many of those middle-skill jobs
-
11:58 - 12:00use well-understood rules and procedures
-
12:00 - 12:03that can increasingly
be codified in software -
12:03 - 12:06and executed by computers.
-
12:06 - 12:10The challenge that
this phenomenon creates, -
12:10 - 12:12what economists call
employment polarization, -
12:12 - 12:15is that it knocks out rungs
in the economic ladder, -
12:15 - 12:17shrinks the size of the middle class
-
12:17 - 12:20and threatens to make us
a more stratified society. -
12:20 - 12:24On the one hand, a set of highly paid,
highly educated professionals -
12:24 - 12:25doing interesting work,
-
12:25 - 12:29on the other, a large number
of citizens in low-paid jobs -
12:29 - 12:34whose primary responsibility is to see
to the comfort and health of the affluent. -
12:34 - 12:37That is not my vision of progress,
-
12:37 - 12:39and I doubt that it is yours.
-
12:39 - 12:41But here is some encouraging news.
-
12:41 - 12:46We have faced equally momentous
economic transformations in the past, -
12:46 - 12:49and we have come
through them successfully. -
12:49 - 12:54In the late 1800s and early 1900s,
-
12:54 - 12:59when automation was eliminating
vast numbers of agricultural jobs -- -
12:59 - 13:01remember that tractor? --
-
13:01 - 13:04the farm states faced a threat
of mass unemployment, -
13:04 - 13:07a generation of youth
no longer needed on the farm -
13:08 - 13:09but not prepared for industry.
-
13:10 - 13:12Rising to this challenge,
-
13:12 - 13:13they took the radical step
-
13:13 - 13:16of requiring that
their entire youth population -
13:16 - 13:19remain in school
and continue their education -
13:19 - 13:21to the ripe old age of 16.
-
13:22 - 13:24This was called the high school movement,
-
13:24 - 13:26and it was a radically
expensive thing to do. -
13:26 - 13:29Not only did they have
to invest in the schools, -
13:29 - 13:31but those kids couldn't work
at their jobs. -
13:31 - 13:35It also turned out to be
one of the best investments -
13:35 - 13:37the US made in the 20th century.
-
13:37 - 13:39It gave us the most skilled,
the most flexible -
13:39 - 13:42and the most productive
workforce in the world. -
13:42 - 13:47To see how well this worked,
imagine taking the labor force of 1899 -
13:47 - 13:49and bringing them into the present.
-
13:49 - 13:52Despite their strong backs
and good characters, -
13:52 - 13:56many of them would lack
the basic literacy and numeracy skills -
13:56 - 13:59to do all but the most mundane jobs.
-
13:59 - 14:01Many of them would be unemployable.
-
14:02 - 14:06What this example highlights
is the primacy of our institutions, -
14:06 - 14:07most especially our schools,
-
14:07 - 14:10in allowing us to reap the harvest
-
14:10 - 14:12of our technological prosperity.
-
14:12 - 14:15It's foolish to say
there's nothing to worry about. -
14:15 - 14:17Clearly we can get this wrong.
-
14:18 - 14:21If the US had not invested
in its schools and in its skills -
14:21 - 14:23a century ago with
the high school movement, -
14:23 - 14:25we would be a less prosperous,
-
14:25 - 14:29a less mobile and probably
a lot less happy society. -
14:29 - 14:31But it's equally foolish
to say that our fates are sealed. -
14:32 - 14:33That's not decided by the machines.
-
14:33 - 14:35It's not even decided by the market.
-
14:35 - 14:38It's decided by us
and by our institutions. -
14:38 - 14:41Now, I started this talk with a paradox.
-
14:41 - 14:44Our machines increasingly
do our work for us. -
14:44 - 14:46Why doesn't that make
our labor superfluous, -
14:46 - 14:47our skills redundant?
-
14:47 - 14:51Isn't it obvious that the road
to our economic and social hell -
14:51 - 14:53is paved with our own great inventions?
-
14:54 - 14:58History has repeatedly offered
an answer to that paradox. -
14:58 - 15:02The first part of the answer
is that technology magnifies our leverage, -
15:02 - 15:04increases the importance, the added value
-
15:05 - 15:08of our expertise,
our judgment and our creativity. -
15:08 - 15:09That's the O-ring.
-
15:10 - 15:13The second part of the answer
is our endless inventiveness -
15:13 - 15:14and bottomless desires
-
15:14 - 15:16means that we never get enough,
never get enough. -
15:16 - 15:19There's always new work to do.
-
15:20 - 15:23Adjusting to the rapid pace
of technological change -
15:23 - 15:25creates real challenges,
-
15:25 - 15:28seen most clearly
in our polarized labor market -
15:28 - 15:30and the threat that it poses
to economic mobility. -
15:31 - 15:34Rising to this challenge is not automatic.
-
15:34 - 15:36It's not costless.
-
15:36 - 15:37It's not easy.
-
15:37 - 15:39But it is feasible.
-
15:39 - 15:41And here is some encouraging news.
-
15:41 - 15:43Because of our amazing productivity,
-
15:43 - 15:44we're rich.
-
15:44 - 15:48Of course we can afford
to invest in ourselves and in our children -
15:48 - 15:51as America did a hundred years ago
with the high school movement. -
15:51 - 15:53Arguably, we can't afford not to.
-
15:54 - 15:56Now, you may be thinking,
-
15:56 - 15:59Professor Autor has told us
a heartwarming tale -
15:59 - 16:01about the distant past,
-
16:01 - 16:02the recent past,
-
16:02 - 16:05maybe the present,
but probably not the future. -
16:05 - 16:09Because everybody knows
that this time is different. -
16:09 - 16:12Right? Is this time different?
-
16:12 - 16:14Of course this time is different.
-
16:14 - 16:16Every time is different.
-
16:16 - 16:19On numerous occasions
in the last 200 years, -
16:19 - 16:22scholars and activists
have raised the alarm -
16:22 - 16:26that we are running out of work
and making ourselves obsolete: -
16:26 - 16:30for example, the Luddites
in the early 1800s; -
16:30 - 16:33US Secretary of Labor James Davis
-
16:33 - 16:36in the mid-1920s;
-
16:36 - 16:41Nobel Prize-winning economist
Wassily Leontief in 1982; -
16:41 - 16:44and of course, many scholars,
-
16:44 - 16:46pundits, technologists
-
16:46 - 16:48and media figures today.
-
16:50 - 16:53These predictions strike me as arrogant.
-
16:54 - 16:56These self-proclaimed oracles
are in effect saying, -
16:57 - 17:00"If I can't think of what people
will do for work in the future, -
17:00 - 17:03then you, me and our kids
-
17:03 - 17:05aren't going to think of it either."
-
17:06 - 17:08I don't have the guts
-
17:08 - 17:11to take that bet against human ingenuity.
-
17:11 - 17:14Look, I can't tell you
what people are going to do for work -
17:14 - 17:16a hundred years from now.
-
17:16 - 17:18But the future doesn't hinge
on my imagination. -
17:19 - 17:23If I were a farmer in Iowa
in the year 1900, -
17:23 - 17:27and an economist from the 21st century
teleported down to my field -
17:27 - 17:29and said, "Hey, guess what, farmer Autor,
-
17:30 - 17:32in the next hundred years,
-
17:32 - 17:35agricultural employment is going to fall
from 40 percent of all jobs -
17:35 - 17:37to two percent
-
17:37 - 17:39purely due to rising productivity.
-
17:39 - 17:43What do you think the other
38 percent of workers are going to do?" -
17:43 - 17:46I would not have said, "Oh, we got this.
-
17:46 - 17:49We'll do app development,
radiological medicine, -
17:49 - 17:52yoga instruction, Bitmoji."
-
17:52 - 17:54(Laughter)
-
17:54 - 17:55I wouldn't have had a clue.
-
17:56 - 17:58But I hope I would have had
the wisdom to say, -
17:58 - 18:02"Wow, a 95 percent reduction
in farm employment -
18:02 - 18:05with no shortage of food.
-
18:05 - 18:07That's an amazing amount of progress.
-
18:07 - 18:10I hope that humanity
finds something remarkable to do -
18:10 - 18:12with all of that prosperity."
-
18:13 - 18:16And by and large, I would say that it has.
-
18:18 - 18:19Thank you very much.
-
18:19 - 18:24(Applause)
- Title:
- Will automation take away all our jobs?
- Speaker:
- David Autor
- Description:
-
Here's a paradox you don't hear much about: despite a century of creating machines to do our work for us, the proportion of adults in the US with a job has consistently gone up for the past 125 years. Why hasn't human labor become redundant and our skills obsolete? In this talk about the future of work, economist David Autor addresses the question of why there are still so many jobs and comes up with a surprising, hopeful answer.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 18:37
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for Why are there still so many jobs? |