In These Small Cities, AI Advances Could Be Costly

It's long been clear that urbanization and automated technologies are shaping society, but it hasn't been obvious how the two forces affect each other. A new study from MIT's Media Lab posits that the smaller the city, the greater the impact it faces from automation. The finding, they say, could encourage legislators to pay special attention to workers in smaller cities and offer them support services. Other researchers have attempted to measure the effect of technology on employment in cities, but the Media Lab authors, who have identified which jobs and skills tend to be more prevalent in smaller cities and larger ones, claim to be the first to explain why different U.S. cities are more susceptible (or resilient) to technological unemployment. They say that bigger cities have a disproportionately large number of jobs for people who do cognitive and analytical tasks, such as software developers and financial analysts--occupations that are less likely to be disrupted by automation.