technologyreview | Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is
easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really
is. Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management,
and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for
the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer
technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation
services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last
10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee
dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new
technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing,
clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial
services, education, and medicine.
That robots, automation, and
software can replace people might seem obvious to anyone who’s worked in
automotive manufacturing or as a travel agent. But Brynjolfsson and
McAfee’s claim is more troubling and controversial. They believe that
rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is
creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the
growth of inequality in the United States. And, they suspect, something
similar is happening in other technologically advanced countries.
Perhaps
the most damning piece of evidence, according to Brynjolfsson, is a
chart that only an economist could love. In economics, productivity—the
amount of economic value created for a given unit of input, such as an
hour of labor—is a crucial indicator of growth and wealth creation. It
is a measure of progress. On the chart Brynjolfsson likes to show,
separate lines represent productivity and total employment in the United
States. For years after World War II, the two lines closely tracked
each other, with increases in jobs corresponding to increases in
productivity. The pattern is clear: as businesses generated more value
from their workers, the country as a whole became richer, which fueled
more economic activity and created even more jobs. Then, beginning in
2000, the lines diverge; productivity continues to rise robustly, but
employment suddenly wilts. By 2011, a significant gap appears between
the two lines, showing economic growth with no parallel increase in job
creation. Brynjolfsson and McAfee call it the “great decoupling.” And
Brynjolfsson says he is confident that technology is behind both the
healthy growth in productivity and the weak growth in jobs.
