Comments on correspondence, via Dave Farber's IP list, about jobs.
In correspondence entitled "Stop Saying Robots Are Destroying Jobs—They Aren't", Robert Atkinson (president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.) asserts that
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew Macafee are in error in seeing economic disruption from computers. Brynjolfsson and Macafee see the erosion of employment accelerating as a consequence of Moore''s law - computers are becoming more powerful, more rapidly and thus more able to take over the functions previously reserved for humans in gainful employ.
But Atkinson sees this as in error because "when a
machine replaces a worker, there is a second order effect:
the organization using the machine saves money and that money it flows
back into to the economy either through lower prices, higher wages for
the remaining workers, or higher profits. In all three cases that money
gets spent which stimulates demand that other companies respond to by
hiring more workers."
