If you had a PC in the 2010s, you probably owned a copy of Purble Place. The gaudy kids' game came with every copy of Windows Vista and 7. It was a simple, three-title package: Purble Pairs was a basic tile memory game; Purble Shop had the player design a mystery character using logic and deduction; and the last game of Comfy Cakes had kids playing line cook for the Purble Chef while juggling orders on a conveyor belt. And for many online teens, the legacy of these games easily equals that of Minesweeper and Solitaire, the more venerable pack-in games of PCs past. Yet nobody knows who made it.

Back In 2000, Goldman Sachs employed 600 people to execute stock trades for the investment bank's major clients. By 2017, that workforce had reportedly dwindled to just two traders -- the others had been replaced by automated trading systems that can handle millions of transactions per minute. The rise of artificial intelligence threatens many more college-educated workers as the technology becomes more sophisticated and is more widely adopted by a range of industries, according to a new Brookings Institution analysis. In fact, the researchers say, AI is five times as likely to displace college grads than those without a degree. The research "suggests that better-educated, better-paid workers (along with manufacturing and production workers) will be the most affected by the new AI technologies, with some exceptions," write Mark Muro, Jacob Whiton and Robert Maxim of Brookings.

For senior IT people, 2019 may not look to be the happiest of new years. Many experienced technologists are finding their roles outsourced, with other employers looking for only younger (read: cheaper) employees. "I had three jobs in three years," Mike, a 50-something New York-based IT specialist, told me a year ago. "They've all ended with even new hires being let go and the work outsourced. I had to go before a judge to explain my financial situation, and he said I should take a class to update my skills. As if that would fix it."