Are Robots Really Coming for Our Jobs?

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

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4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2015

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Bessen, economist and former software executive, on what we can learn from 19th century mill workers about innovation, wages, and technology.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you work with early career professionals, my colleagues at
0:03.8	HPR have a great new podcast for you. It's called New Here. Think of it like the
0:08.4	Young Professional's Guide to Building a Meaningful Career on your own terms.
0:11.9	Share New Here with the Young Professionals in your life. a meaningful career on your own terms.
0:12.8	Share new here with the young professionals in your life.
0:15.9	Listen for free wherever you got your podcasts.
0:18.6	Just search new here. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Walter Frick. I'm joined on the phone today
0:35.5	by James Bessen, economist and lecturer at Boston University Law School. He's the author of the
0:41.0	recent book Learning by Doing
0:43.0	The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth.
0:47.0	Thanks so much for joining us.
0:48.0	Thanks for having you, Walt.
0:50.0	So this is a timely topic, and there are a lot of new books and articles out here.
0:55.0	What made you write the book? Why is this such an important time to talk about the connection between technology jobs and wages?
1:02.0	Well, it's certainly one of the key social issues we're facing.
1:06.0	Wages have been stagnant in spite of the fact that we have a whole new generations of technology coming out.
1:12.0	And there is this very serious question. of technology
1:14.0	coming out.
1:15.0	I think people ask is technology turned against us.
1:19.0	Over the past 200 years, technology has brought the average worker a tenfold increase in
1:24.8	wages yet since the 1980s the immediate wage has been pretty much stagnant.
1:30.8	Your book taps into this whole debate about technology and jobs, but it does it not by looking
	...

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