Are robots really coming for your job?

But concerns over growing inequality and the lack of opportunity for many in the labor force--serious matters linked to a variety of structural changes in the economy–are well-founded and need to be addressed, four scholars on artificial intelligence and the economy recently told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business. That's not to say that artificial intelligence isn't having a profound effect on many areas of the economy. But understanding the link between the two trends is difficult and it's easy to make misleading assumptions about the kinds of jobs that are in danger of becoming obsolete. "Most jobs are more complex than [many people] realize," said Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, during a forum on the future of work, which was sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Today's workforce is sharply divided by levels of education, and those who have not gone beyond high school are affected the most by long-term changes in the economy, says David Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.