Video: Technology and Jobs: Should Workers Worry?

I enjoyed this session:

Moderator: Josh Barro, Correspondent, New York Times

Speakers

• James Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
• Jeremy Howard, CEO, Enlitic
• Gerald Huff, Principal Software Engineer, Tesla Motors
• Amy Webb, Digital Media Futurist; Founder, Webbmedia Group

For centuries, people have worried that new technologies will destroy jobs without creating enough new ones, and every time the doomsayers have been proven wrong. But today, with disruptive advances occurring at dizzying speed, some worry that the time may finally have come when more jobs are destroyed by technology than are created. One 2013 report by Oxford University researchers concluded that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are threatened by automation. Should workers be worried, or is the fear overblown? Is technology - from robots to intelligent digital agents - our friend or a threat? If the latter, what do we need to do to ensure employment by the middle class and others? How can we reorganize our business and economic system to avert more economic turmoil?