Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? | David Autor | TEDxCambridge

Despite a century of remarkable labor-saving automation, the fraction of U.S. adults who work at a job has risen almost continuously for the past 125 years. This poses a paradox: our machines increasingly do our work for us: why doesn’t that make our labor redundant and our skills obsolete?

This talk by MIT Economist David Autor addresses the paradox of why there are there still so many jobs. He explains how, even as machines displace rote human activity, they complement human expertise, judgment, and creativity. Autor lays out what this means for the future of work, and for the challenges that automation does—and does not—pose for our society.

David Autor is Ford Professor of Economics and Associate Head of the MIT Department of Economics. Autor’s work assesses the labor market consequences of technological change and globalization, focusing on earnings inequality, employment and unemployment, and feedback between labor market opportunities, household structure, and the social and intellectual development of children.

Autor earned a B.A. in Psychology from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1999. Prior to graduate study, he devoted three years to directing computer skills education for economically disadvantaged children and adults at non-profit organizations in San Francisco and South Africa.

[richardfrank]

Lots of jobs but no increase in pay for 30+ years

[fleckx]

He basically got up there and said "Chill, y'all, robots won't take all ur jibs, because, like, nature finds a way, and stuff." Brilliant.

[jamieporter]

yay i needed something exactly like this for my argumentative essay thanks a ton

[movieguy]

Umm could the labor force participation rate gone up like 15 percent since the 1800s because women entered the workforce?

[thetawaves]

ALL machines - including human bodies - need maintenance and repair - creating more work that is more and more complicated.

[brianchangsingapore]

90% of the middle class did not see a pay Rise over 20 years. The future is worse.

[VeganSemihCyprus]

Resource based economy for a better future.

[moemoehla]

The only sensible automation....well said!!

[KungFuChess]

Computers are a recent phenomenon though.. they will most certainly in time replace brain labor just like the machine replaced manual labor.

[Eric-yeyz]

Too often people have looked at the past and assumed the future will be just the same.

It is the argument of choice when all else fails. The planet has always had hot/cold cycles, when discussing global warming, but there has never been 9 billion people on earth all wanting cars and electricity before. Now we are told there are plenty of jobs, because there always has been. The speaker is unable to see the effect of robotics and the fact there are 9 billion people.

The world we live in today is very different to the past, therefor the past is becoming increasing unreliable as a gauge to the future.

In fact 150 years ago the world was more similar to that of ancient Greece than now.

[deo-nis]

Yes, creativity is coming from the way unemployment is calculated. If you are not looking for a job you are not considered unemployed.

[thhm]

Enlightening speech, but a bit too anthropocentric. While it does explain the relationship of quantity of jobs vs the quality of jobs and the disappearance of the the middle class that may rise to a more stratified society, it simply skimps over the major philosophical fallacies that society imposes on us: despite all this abundance, you still have to work, often endless hours higher salaries or not, because thats how society deems what your worth is. Why do we even have to give everyone jobs? "If your jobless, then you must be lazy or stupid" thats what most of us are taught, because none of those "abundance" is free, pretty soon not even clean air.
A never ending demand for growth for an exponentially increasing population basing its wealth on a finite planet, with ALL human activities causing some form of pollution or other, thats our real problem right now. It's a philosophical dilemma when weve become the victims of our own success. Theres just so many of us, thats whats different. And i think itll be a long time before all countries on earth would have governments who think like Norway or could afford to.

[chrisnamaste]

Windows 2000 was reliable for the era. He should use Windows Millennium Edition, Windows Vista, and Windows 8. They all were problem children.

[guusvanderwerf]

One little statistic about fraction of work and a lot of fantasy.

There are still so many jobs because we do not measure productivity of most jobs. For most companies this does not matter at all. Most organizations are oligarchy or public companies.

But... since new disruptive techniques will arise about 75% of moest private companies will not survive 21first century.

And... most people will not believe they will become obsolete. As farmers did. Now laywers and doctors and programmers will have to find a new job.

[jabel]

"O ring" principle, yes; "never get enough", no because that depends on maintaining employment as the major income distribution mechanism: Jobs must be create to maintain the flow of purchasing power to the buying public.

[ДмитрийАверьянов-ум]

So few farmers can feed so many. Amazing. Considering that the food import share estimate for 2013 is 20 percent based on value and 19.4 percent based on volume.

[snakeman]

Once I started looking into robotic systems, AI, exponential growth and UBI universal basic income (freedom dividend) - it's amazing how many TED Talks there are and how many great minds have researched this and put their information out for everyone to see, hear and read. I now support Andrew Yang for president because he is the candidate that has a vision of what will happen and what is happening. He is forward-thinking on how to go with the future and not being overcome by it

[bearofthunder]

Kudos for trying to stay positive, and the positive possibilities are obvious. The problem today is that we are butting against two problems.
1. We have to use less resouces and do less damage to our planet. Never before have we reached the limits of what the planet can sustain.
2. He is talking so beautifully about "we" and "us" as the human race and what we have achieved together, but nice as this is there are a class of people who are not taking adequate responsibility for the planet and the human race, and these people have most of the money, that "we", the whole humanity as a whole have created. The "we" thing have to go all the way to the top.

[Rooh]

This guy fails to take into account that AI is no longer restricted to a single task. Deep learning makes this talk irrelevant. We should stop looking at ways to keep people employed and move toward transitioning to a society in which human labor is unneeded.

[alanroberts]

There seems to be a finite amount of things i need. But i am a victim of the obsolesance of things. Wether planned or not. New tv, newer car (with a screen in it)., and other new stuff but not really different stuff.
People dont work because they want stuff. People work because they have become sheep in a horrible world. Nobody appreciates and takes care of things when its just stuff right.
Many of jobs in america are inventions in and of themselves.
The entire defense industry alone including the military must account for close to 50% of everything in this country. I mean every little thing. And many more goverment jobs that we could live without a also.