Authors see dark side of tech's advances

One of the biggest issues in the presidential race is voter anger over lost middle-income jobs, real and perceived damage from trade deals, and rising inequality. But none of the candidates is talking about the elephant pushing its way into the room: a new wave of job-eating information technology, advanced automation, robots and artificial intelligence. The elites have been discussing what's coming for some time, notably a 2014 speech by Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google's parent Alphabet. Huge numbers of middle-class jobs were going to be automated, and few new positions would replace them. He called it the "defining" issue of the next two or three decades.