Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed


Forgot your password?

Submission + - Technologies Like Google's Self-Driving Car: Destroying Jobs?-> 2 2

Nerval's Lobster writes: For quite some time, some economists and social scientists have argued that advances in robotics and computer technology are systematically wrecking the job prospects of human beings. Back in June, for example, an MIT Technology Review article detailed Erik Brynjolfsson (a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management) and a co-author suggesting that the evolution of computer technology was "largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years." Of course, technological change and its impact on the workforce is nothing new; just look at the Industrial Revolution, when labor-saving devices put many a hard-working homo sapien out of economic commission. But how far can things go? There are even arguments that the technology behind Google's Self-Driving Car, which allows machines to rapidly adapt to situations, could put whole new subsets of people out of jobs.
Link to Original Source

Technologies Like Google's Self-Driving Car: Destroying Jobs?

Comments Filter:
  • Even if working for a living stops being an option, there's always stealing from the absurdly wealthy.(and everyone else)

  • Cars led to the loss of jobs in the buggy whip industry and farrier industry. It also led to massive retraining in the smithing industry.

    Similarly, autonomous cars will lead to the loss of jobs in the taxicab industry etc. while requiring massive retraining in other industries.

    This is how things have progressed since the advent of the mechanical loom. Somehow, we've continued to expand population and standard of living around the world.

    Computer technology has been evolving for over a century (even if it u
