Automation is coming, but it'll take longer than you'll think (and won't take your job)

For the book, I interviewed executives at more than 50 work settings across industries about how automation technologies (machine learning, robotics, wearables etc.) are transforming jobs. The practitioners I interviewed talked about using technology to improve productivity and product quality. They were pragmatic and generally optimistic. I also found a contrasting sense of pessimism, indeed panic, in the academic, analyst and economist world about machines causing'jobless futures." Why are so many smart people so pessimistic? Being a technology enthusiast for decades, I wondered what I might be missing. I found inspiration in something I had heard from Bill Joy, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems. Joy, who was once described by Fortune as the "Edison of the Internet," had this guidance: "If you cannot solve a problem, make the problem bigger.