One would expect that a surge of new automation opportunities in highly paid work would catalyze a surge of corporate investment in computer hardware and software. Instead, the opposite occurred. David Autor Read Quote
I did software development for a while, and I also spent several years directing a nonprofit in San Francisco that did computer education for the poor. I also did a lot of work in fast food. David Autor Read Quote
I think we labor economists like to think of ourselves as being closer to the people. David Autor Read Quote
The last 200 years, we’ve had an incredible amount of automation. We have tractors that do the work that horses and people used to do on farms. We don’t dig ditches by hand anymore. We don’t pound tools out of wrought iron. We don’t do bookkeeping with books! But this has not, in net, reduced the amount of employment. David Autor Read Quote
History has suggested that the pessimists have been wrong time and time again. David Autor Read Quote
I’m a professor of economics and associate head of the MIT Department of Economics. David Autor Read Quote
There’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value. David Autor Read Quote
There is no question we are in an era of people asking, ‘Is the Robocalypse upon us? David Autor Read Quote
