TODAY, IN 2017, the president's top economic advisor said he had no worries about robots putting people out of work. "In terms of artificial intelligence taking over the jobs, I think we're so far away from that that it's not even on my radar screen," Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told an audience in Washington. "I think it's 50 or 100 more years." Mnuchin has made similarly confounding statements about AI before. "Not even on my radar screen," he said breezily during an Axios interview.

TODAY, IN 2017, the president's top economic advisor said he had no worries about robots putting people out of work. "In terms of artificial intelligence taking over the jobs, I think we're so far away from that that it's not even on my radar screen," Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told an audience in Washington. "I think it's 50 or 100 more years." Mnuchin has made similarly confounding statements about AI before. "Not even on my radar screen," he said breezily during an Axios interview: Mnuchin's blasé dismissal of AI's potential impact on jobs shouldn't surprise readers because, as the Washington Post reported (August 5, 2016) in an article scarily entitled "Trump's Economic Team Has Six Men Named Steve But No Women," Trump's team of economic advisors, initially comprised of 13 men, seemed woefully imbalanced in many respects.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says artificial intelligence is "so far in the future" that it's "not even on my radar screen." He says we won't have to worry about how it affects the workforce for "50 or 100 more years." Steve Mnuchin is not concerned one bit with AI and automation. In fairness to Mnuchin, the question was specifically about artificial intelligence, not robots. It's a fine distinction, but an important one -- while robots that can perform repetitive tasks have been in wide industrial use for decades now, artificial intelligence is a class of software that can "learn" and let machines do more sophisticated jobs.

Mnuchin went on to clarify his comment a bit, noting that he doesn't think self-driving cars use artificial intelligence because "that's computers and using real technology we have today." It's a comment that shows his understanding of machine learning and AI to be rather short-sighted and outdated. Mnuchin said that he is thinking more about robots taking people's jobs, invoking the R2-D2 droid from Star Wars, saying that a self-driving car network is "very different from artificial, you know, R2-D2 taking over your job." Overall, he said he's "not at all" worried about robots or AI displacing jobs in the short term. "in fact, I'm optimistic," he said, referring to the potential of technology to help "create productivity."

Mnuchin went on to clarify his comment a bit, noting that he doesn't think self-driving cars use artificial intelligence because "that's computers and using real technology we have today." It's a comment that shows his understanding of machine learning and AI to be rather short-sighted and outdated. Mnuchin said that he is thinking more about robots taking people's jobs, invoking the R2-D2 droid from Star Wars, saying that a self-driving car network is "very different from artificial, you know, R2-D2 taking over your job." Overall, he said he's "not at all" worried about robots or AI displacing jobs in the short term. "in fact, I'm optimistic," he said, referring to the potential of technology to help "create productivity."