AI could create a 'Mad Max' scenario where everyone's skills are basically worthless, a top economist says
AI could create a 'Mad Max' scenario where everyone's skills are basically worthless, a top economist says
MIT economist David Autor said on the "Possible" podcast that AI may lead to a world where jobs remain but skills are devalued.
As AI reshapes the labor market, the real threat may not be unemployment — it could be something subtler and more corrosive: the collapse in what skills are worth.
That's according to MIT economist David Autor, who made the comments in an interview released Wednesday on the "Possible" podcast, hosted by LinkedIn cofounder Reed Hoffman.
Autor warned that rapid automation could usher in what he calls a "Mad Max" scenario — a world where jobs still exist, but the skills that once generated wages become cheap and commoditized.
This economist is telling me they never fixed their own plumbing.
There's theoretically nothing hard about plumbing.
It stands to reason that we ought to be able to automate all plumbing repair quite soon.
Unlike this economist, I've enjoyed a delightful spray of educational water, more than once, highlighting the joy of discovery of one of the many more nuanced aspects of home plumbing.
If there's one thing I've learned over and over, it is that however complicated I think some aspect of the world is, it is actually at least slightly more complicated than that.
I find it particularly evocative when I happen to learn this lesson while I am literally "all wet".
Robots may become delightful-but-stupid helpers to many more roles, any day now - even plumbers.
Perhaps someday robots of various jobs may even become delightful while even not-too-terribly-stupid.
But thinking that all subject matter experts will be adequately replaced by robots is incredibly naive.
I personally consider that belief "all wet".
Can tell he's an economist. AI sucks at every job lol