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Monday, July 24, 2017

Automation, Professionals, and Managers


Here’s the dirty little secret about automation: it’s easier to build a robot to replace a junior attorney than to replace a journeyman electrician. And that fact helps explain why economists and politicians are feeling misgivings about “creative destruction,” which, up to now, they have usually embraced as a net good for society. Technology and automation, they’ve argued—correctly—boost productivity and create more jobs overall (even as some kinds of work get eradicated).

Read the rest of the essay by Mark P. Mills in City Journal.
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2 comments:

  1. Dan in Philly11:34 AM

    In hindsight, I might be considered to have been born in the golden time - old enough to have entered the workforce (as an accountant) when there was still a strong apprenticeship model which taught me how to be a good accountant, and young enough to now be managing computer systems which do the work junior accountants such as I once was used to do, thereby making myself far more productive and valuable than I would have been in those days.

    Now when we hire new people they must learn accounting, how to manage accounting computers and systems, and the intricacies of the business all at once, which is far harder than the slower pace of 20-30 years ago.

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  2. Michael Wade8:12 AM

    Daniel,

    That is a very interesting observation.

    Michael

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