What Billy Joel Can Teach Us About AI

At first blush, the aging pop star Billy Joel wouldn't seem to have much to tell us about automation and the future of work. His main contribution to forecasting was the dystopian "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)," a 1976 song that ends with the island of Manhattan being sunk at sea. (Spoiler: It's 2017 and the island of Manhattan is very much buoyant. However, in sifting through the constant barrage of headlines, reports, projections, and warnings about robots and automation, the hook of another Billy Joel song, "Summer, Highland Falls," comes to mind: "It's either sadness or euphoria." Those seem to be the polar reactions to the advent of the next wave of disruptive technology. Automation and artificial intelligence, we are told, have the capacity to replace all manner of jobs quite soon. And the result will likely be sadness on a massive scale for many workers.