Is coding the newest and coolest language you need to be fluent in? It may get you a foot in some doors or solve problems, but how critical is this skill? If you have an Amazon Echo or Apple IPhone, these artificial intelligence requests probably sound familiar. Even if you're scratching your head, you've most likely typed requests with a chatbot or have repeated your purpose to call with an automated operator. Just the fact that these are normal daily interactions with artificial intelligence shows how far we've come -- from a black screen with a pulsating mouse in the 80s to now, well, this.

The patter of automated machinery fills the air inside wire-basket manufacturer Marlin Steel's bustling factory in a rugged industrial section of this city. Maxi Cifarelli, 25, of Baltimore, peers through safety goggles at a flat screen, her left knee bent and heel resting on her chair. Two years after earning a fine arts degree from Towson University with a specialty in interdisciplinary object design, she now spends her work days working with a personality-free machine with a name to match: a computer numerical control, or CNC, router. With automation poised to sweep through the economy, some fear that it will kill more jobs than it creates. But Cifarelli's experience is the opposite. She befriended automation, instead of fighting it, and she has a job because of it.

The patter of automated machinery fills the air inside wire-basket manufacturer Marlin Steel's bustling factory in a rugged industrial section of this city. Maxi Cifarelli, 25, of Baltimore, peers through safety goggles at a flat screen, her left knee bent and heel resting on her chair. Two years after earning a fine arts degree from Towson University with a specialty in interdisciplinary object design, she now spends her work days working with a personality-free machine with a name to match: a computer numerical control, or CNC, router. With automation poised to sweep through the economy, some fear that it will kill more jobs than it creates. But Cifarelli's experience is the opposite. She befriended automation, instead of fighting it, and she has a job because of it.

Despite political discord, the American economy is doing well, Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Thursday. "I think the math is the American economy is doing well, and the unemployment situation is [going] well, and if you're confused on that, visit Europe," Schmidt said. Schmidt spoke from the DealBook Conference in New York City, hosted by CNBC anchor and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and the editors of the Times. The conference focuses on "playing for the long term" in a business environment that's shackled to quarterly returns and compressed news cycles. After an election cycle that stoked arguments over the shrinking middle class and widening inequality, Schmidt addressed the role that information played in the political process.

COUNTRIES grow richer when they learn how to produce more valuable stuff per person. Sadly, many advanced economies seem to have lost the knack. Except for a brief spurt around the turn of the millennium, productivity has grown painfully slowly in rich countries over the last four decades (see chart)--a factor, economists reckon, that has contributed to stagnant pay. Labour productivity in America fell at a startling 2.2% annual pace in the fourth quarter of 2015; growth of 0.6% for the year as a whole was better, but hardly impressive. Orthodox explanations for the problem tend to fall into one of three categories.