6 thoughts on ““Humans Need Not Apply” — A video about the robot revolution and jobs”
I believe two major changes for jobs have occurred in the Modern Information Age:
(1) Increased IT efficiency in robotics, various software applications, and electronic transaction systems usually leads to replacing rather than creating jobs in production lines or supply chains. I think this is already a well-known change for jobs and many scholars are very concerned about the further advancement of technology, especially in robotics.
(2) Increasingly unfair conditions for competition between big companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMBEs) in the changed modern supply chain processes have killed jobs in the market on a massive scale, along with raising barriers to market entry for new business creation. This must result in a big change for jobs, but very strangely, nobody has recognized it and considered it in his or her ruminations about the economy until now.
More seriously, it seems that a vicious cycle for jobs between (1) increased IT efficiency and (2) increasingly unfair conditions for competition is already firmly established in the economy. This situation is analogous to an ant death spiral. That is, an economic death spiral has already formed in our economy. If this is true, no sustainable solution will be found with the existing economic plans and policies until that economic death spiral is broken.
In the future, I believe rightly, or wrongly that our understanding of the economy will be such that it would be possible to gradually phase in the creation of new money electronically (without serious inflation) in which new forms of “jobs” could be created for human beings. These “jobs” could be found notably in the greater, and greater expansion of NGOs that would become increasingly better funded, and more influential in trying to reform society, and politics…
Martin Ford 
I believe two major changes for jobs have occurred in the Modern Information Age:
(1) Increased IT efficiency in robotics, various software applications, and electronic transaction systems usually leads to replacing rather than creating jobs in production lines or supply chains. I think this is already a well-known change for jobs and many scholars are very concerned about the further advancement of technology, especially in robotics.
(2) Increasingly unfair conditions for competition between big companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMBEs) in the changed modern supply chain processes have killed jobs in the market on a massive scale, along with raising barriers to market entry for new business creation. This must result in a big change for jobs, but very strangely, nobody has recognized it and considered it in his or her ruminations about the economy until now.
More seriously, it seems that a vicious cycle for jobs between (1) increased IT efficiency and (2) increasingly unfair conditions for competition is already firmly established in the economy. This situation is analogous to an ant death spiral. That is, an economic death spiral has already formed in our economy. If this is true, no sustainable solution will be found with the existing economic plans and policies until that economic death spiral is broken.
In the future, I believe rightly, or wrongly that our understanding of the economy will be such that it would be possible to gradually phase in the creation of new money electronically (without serious inflation) in which new forms of “jobs” could be created for human beings. These “jobs” could be found notably in the greater, and greater expansion of NGOs that would become increasingly better funded, and more influential in trying to reform society, and politics…
I should have added that I am involved in a work in progress project called Transfinancial Economics found at the p2p Foundation. http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics