Why Robots Will Not Put Us Out of Work

A recent article in The Guardian dons the foreboding title "Robots will destroy our jobs--and we're not ready for it." The article claims, "For every job created by robotic automation, several more will be eliminated entirely. According to an article in MIT Technology Review, business researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee 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. If technology is destroying jobs faster than it's creating them, it is the first time in human history that it's done so. Actually, the number of jobs is unlimited, for the simple reason that human wants are unlimited--or they don't frequently reveal their bounds.