Why 'the future of AI is the future of work'

Amid widespread anxiety about automation and machines displacing workers, the idea that technological advances aren't necessarily driving us toward a jobless future is good news. At the same time, "many in our country are failing to thrive in a labor market that generates plenty of jobs but little economic security," MIT professors David Autor and David Mindell and principal research scientist Elisabeth Reynolds write in their new book "The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines." The authors lay out findings from their work chairing the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, which MIT president L. Rafael Reif commissioned in 2018. The task force was charged with understanding the relationships between emerging technologies and work, helping shape realistic expectations of technology, and exploring strategies for a future of shared prosperity. Autor, Mindell, and Reynolds worked with 20 faculty members and 20 graduate students who contributed research.