Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
why is this time different?
why this is great news
bill
ions
of
chain
ed 2
00
5 d
olla
rsAmerican GDP, 1947-2012
19
47
19
50
19
55
19
60
19
65
19
70
19
75
19
80
19
85
19
90
19
95
20
00
20
05
20
10
2000
6000
10000
14000
16000
12000
8000
4000
0
Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis
spending on food at home, cars, clothing, household furnishings and housing and utilities, as a share of disposable
functional income, 1950-2012 60%
55%
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 20101950
Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis
Old Media, Digitized, Make New FormsComputers are changing art in unexpected ways.
Martin Gayford
On July 6, 1507, Michelangelo wrote from Bologna to his brother, Buonarroto. He was engaged in casting a colossal bronze sculpture, of Pope Julius II, and because he was not an expert in bronze casting, he had sent to Florence for someone who was: Bernardino d'Antonio del Ponte di Milano, Master of Ordnance to the Republic of Florence. Michelangelo had great faith in him, he told his brother: "I could have believed that Maestro Bernardino could cast without fire." Though the initial attempt had not gone well, he hoped that with "a great deal of anxiety, exertion, and expense" they would eventually succeed—as indeed they did, although later the statue was melted down by the pope's enemies and transformed, ironically, into a cannon.
Fast-forward a little over half a millennium, and the contemporary Swiss artist Urs Fischer was also facing a technical challenge. He wanted to make a perfect facsimile of Giambologna's intertwined three-figure marble sculpture The Rape of the Sabine Women (1582) in candle wax (plus wax sculptures of an office chair and an artist friend of his named Rudolf Stingel). Just like Michelangelo, he sought out technical assistance—in his case Kunstgiesserei, an art foundry at St. Gallen in Switzerland. The original 16th-century sculpture, in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, was digitized by a state-of-the-art optical scanner, and the resulting information was used to create a model, then a mold, and, eventually, a sculpture in wax, precisely mimicking the stone of the original—plus wicks.
Urs Fischer, Untitled, 2011. Wax, pigments, wicks, steel. On view at the 2011 Venice Biennale. (See a gallery of additional art works.)
Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.
- Freeman Dyson
““
economic challenges
what could possibly go wrong?
what could possibly go wrong?
returns to capital
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.10
0.11
0.12113.0
111.0
109.0
107.0
105.0
103.0
101.0
99.0
97.0
95.0
93.01940
2020
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
%
(in
dex 2
005 =
100)
and to labor in the US
corporate profits as % of GDP
wages as % of GDP
Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis
THE BIG STORYHome Latest News
AP IMPACT: RECESSION, TECH KILL MIDDLE-CLASS JOBSBy BERNARD CONDON and PAUL WISEMAN - Jan. 23 4:37 PM EST
Home > American Express Co > AP IMPACT: Recession, tech kill middle-class jobs
NEW YORK (AP) — Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over.And the situation is even worse than it appears.
Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What's more, these jobs aren't just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren't just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers.
They're being obliterated by technology.
societal challenges
what could possibly go wrong?
= Billno college; blue-collar, service, or low-level white-collar worker.
= Tedcollege educated; manager, doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, professor, content producer.
a tale of two workers
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
families in which the head of household or spouse worked 40 or more hours in the preceding week
Source: Charles Murray, Coming Apart
people like Ted
people like Bill
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
men not making a living
people like Bill
people like Ted
Source: Charles Murray, Coming Apart
v
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
proportion of all whites ages 30-49 who self-report being in very happy marriages
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
people like Bill
people like Ted
Source: Charles Murray, Coming Apart
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
percentage of children living with both biological parents when the mother was age 40
95%
85%
75%
65%
55%
45%
35%
25%
people like Bill
people like Ted
Source: Charles Murray, Coming Apart
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
voting turnout in presidential elections, 1968 - 2008
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
people like Bill
people like Ted
Source: Charles Murray, Coming Apart
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
pri
soners
per
10
0,0
00
popula
tion
white prisoners
1000
800
600
400
200
0
people like Bill
people like Ted
Source: Charles Murray, Coming Apart
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Class, not race is the dominant…and becoming more dominant…dimension of difficulty here.
- Robert Putnam
“ “
Work saves a man from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
- Voltaire
“ “
what can we do?
America does half as well (on social mobility) as Nordic countries, & about the same as Britain and Italy, Europe’s least-mobile places.
““
but we will meet them
these are tough challenges
Economics Focus
Marathon machineUnskilled workers are struggling to keep up with technological change
It’s a Man vs. Machine RecoveryCompanies have been buying technology instead of hiring, and Okun’s Law is broken
Bloomberg
By David J. Lynch
Robots are taking mid-level jobs, changing the economyHigh-tech workers should fare well as tech transforms the workplaceBy Sharon Gaudin
October 31, 2011 02:57 PM ET
Computerworld - CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Computers and robots will replace humans in enough jobs that they will dramatically change the economy, said industry watchers and MIT economists at a robotics symposium Monday. And, they said, the transition has already started.
"What we're finally seeing is that our digital helpers aren’t just catching up to us, but, in some cases, are passing us," said Andrew McAfee, an MIT economist and co-author of the book Race Against the Machine. "In some head-to-head contests, machines have raced past us."
When Machines Do The Work
What will be our jobs? Never mind outsourcing, it’s machines moving in on the workplace.
Ever since machines came on the scene, humans worried they would steal their jobs. They did. But humans adapted. Found other jobs. My guests today, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT, say machines are now moving into the workplace at such a pace that humans can’t keep up.
Not even in many white collar settings, where subtle new machine intelligence is now challenging pedigreed human professionals. Plumbers, you’re going to be ok. But what about the rest of us?
This hour On Point: when machines do the work, how will humans make a living?
-Tom Ashbrook
withTom Ashbrook
Look Out! There are Robots All Around
Listen to the StoryTalk of the Nation [ 30 min 18 sec ]
Add to Playlist
Download
+
Explore David Brancaccio’s Marketplace series “Robots Ate My Job.”
April 4, 2012
Marketplace correspondent David Brancaccio wanted to see if it was possible to drive across the country without interacting with a human being – just machines. He discovered how technological advances – from factory robots to self-checkout machines – are changing the future of U.S. jobs.
text size A A A
Editorial
When droids take your jobA duo from MIT argue that rapid computer advances may be vaporizing careers faster than workers can train for new ones.November 28,2011
The stubbornly high unemployment rate has left policymakers wondering whether there's something more at work than just an unusually steep recession. Have the country, its businesses and its markets changed in some fundamental way, leaving millions of Americans with skills that are no longer needed? Economists are sharply divided on that point, but two from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology make a compelling argument that the technology revolution is vaporizing careers faster than many Americans can embark on new ones.
