This document discusses how technology is disrupting the job market and eliminating many middle-class jobs. It begins by providing context on Urs Fischer's wax sculpture mimicking a 16th century marble sculpture and how new technology allowed for its precise replication. It then discusses how computers are changing art in unexpected ways and quotes Freeman Dyson on technology being one of God's greatest gifts. The rest of the document discusses the economic and societal challenges caused by technological disruption, including the loss of middle-class jobs, rising inequality, impacts on family and social structures, and potential policy responses.

5. why is this time different?

9. why this is great news

10. billions of chained 2005 dollars
0
2000
4000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
6000
1947
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
American GDP, 1947-2012
2000
2005
2010

11. spending on food at home, cars, clothing, household furnishings and
housing and utilities, as a share of disposable functional income, 1950-2012
60%
55%
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

16. Old Media, Digitized, Make New Forms
Computers are changing art in unexpected ways. Martin Gayford
On July 6, 1507, Michelangelo wrote from Bologna to his brother, Buonarroto. He was
engaged in casting a colossal bronze sculpture, of Pope Julius II, and because he was not
an expert in bronze casting, he had sent to Florence for someone who was: Bernardino
d'Antonio del Ponte di Milano, Master of Ordnance to the Republic of Florence.
Michelangelo had great faith in him, he told his brother: "I could have believed that
Maestro Bernardino could cast without fire." Though the initial attempt had not gone
well, he hoped that with "a great deal of anxiety, exertion, and expense" they would
eventually succeed—as indeed they did, although later the statue was melted down by
the pope's enemies and transformed, ironically, into a cannon.
Fast-forward a little over half a millennium, and the contemporary Swiss artist Urs
Fischer was also facing a technical challenge. He wanted to make a perfect facsimile of
Giambologna's intertwined three-figure marble sculpture The Rape of the Sabine
Women (1582) in candle wax (plus wax sculptures of an office chair and an artist friend
of his named Rudolf Stingel). Just like Michelangelo, he sought out technical
assistance—in his case Kunstgiesserei, an art foundry at St. Gallen in Switzerland. The
original 16th-century sculpture, in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, was digitized by a
state-of-the-art optical scanner, and the resulting information was used to create a
Urs Fischer, Untitled, 2011.
model, then a mold, and, eventually, a sculpture in wax, precisely mimicking the stone
Wax, pigments, wicks, steel. On view at the 2011 of the original—plus wicks.
Venice Biennale. (See a gallery of additional art
works.)

17. “ Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of
life it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts.
It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and
“
of sciences.
- Freeman Dyson

18. what could possibly go wrong?
economic challenges

20. returns to capital and to labor in the US
0.12 113.0
corporate profits as % of GDP
0.11 111.0
0.10 109.0
0.09 107.0
(index 2005 = 100)
0.08 105.0
0.07 103.0
%
0.06 101.0
0.05 99.0
0.04 97.0
0.03 95.0
wages as % of GDP
0.02 93.0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

21. THE BIG STORY
Home Latest News
AP IMPACT: RECESSION, TECH KILL MIDDLE-CLASS JOBS
By BERNARD CONDON and PAUL WISEMAN - Jan. 23 4:37 PM EST
Home > American Express Co > AP IMPACT: Recession, tech kill middle-class jobs
NEW YORK (AP) — Five years after the start of the Great
Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class
jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over.
And the situation is even worse than it appears.
Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to
vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What's
more, these jobs aren't just being lost to China and other
developing countries, and they aren't just factory work.
Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to
two-thirds of all workers.
They're being obliterated by technology.

22. what could possibly go wrong?
societal challenges

24. a tale of two workers
= Ted
college
educated; manager, doctor, lawyer
, engineer, scientist, professor, cont
ent producer.
= Bill
no college; blue-collar, service, or
low-level white-collar worker.

25. families in which the head of household or spouse worked
40 or more hours in the preceding week
90%
80%
people like Ted
70%
people like Bill
60%
50%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

26. men not making a living
35%
30%
25%
people like Bill
20%
15% people like Ted
10%
5%
v
0%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

27. proportion of all whites ages 30-49 who self-report
being in very happy marriages
70%
60%
people like Ted
50%
40% people like Bill
30%
20%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

28. percentage of children living with both biological parents when the
mother was age 40
95%
85%
75%
people like Ted
65%
55% people like Bill
45%
35%
25%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

29. voting turnout in presidential elections, 1968 - 2008
100%
90%
80%
people like Ted
70%
people like Bill
60%
50%
40%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

30. white prisoners
1000
prisoners per 100,000 population
800
people like Bill
600
400 people like Ted
200
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

31. “ Class, not race is the dominant…
and becoming more dominant…“
dimension of difficulty here.
- Robert Putnam

32. “ Work saves a man from three great evils:
“
boredom, vice and need.
- Voltaire

33. what can we do?

36. “ America does half
as well (on social
mobility) as Nordic
countries, & about
the same as Britain
and Italy, Europe’s “
least-mobile places.

41. these are tough challenges
but we will meet them

43. Economics Focus
Marathon machine
Unskilled workers are struggling to keep up with technological change

44. It’s a Man vs. Machine Recovery
Companies have been buying technology instead of hiring, and Okun’s Law is broken
Bloomberg
By David J. Lynch

45. Robots are taking mid-level jobs, changing the economy
High-tech workers should fare well as tech transforms the workplace
By Sharon Gaudin
October 31, 2011 02:57 PM ET
Computerworld - CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Computers and robots will replace humans in
enough jobs that they will dramatically change the economy, said industry watchers and
MIT economists at a robotics symposium Monday. And, they said, the transition has
already started.
"What we're finally seeing is that our digital helpers aren’t just catching up to us, but, in
some cases, are passing us," said Andrew McAfee, an MIT economist and co-author of
the book Race Against the Machine. "In some head-to-head contests, machines have
raced past us."

47. When Machines Do The Work
What will be our jobs? Never mind outsourcing, it’s machines moving in on the
with workplace.
Tom Ashbrook
Ever since machines came on the scene, humans worried they would steal their
jobs. They did. But humans adapted. Found other jobs. My guests today, Erik
Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT, say machines are now moving into the
workplace at such a pace that humans can’t keep up.
Not even in many white collar settings, where subtle new machine intelligence is
now challenging pedigreed human professionals. Plumbers, you’re going to be
ok. But what about the rest of us?
This hour On Point: when machines do the work, how will humans make a living?
-Tom Ashbrook

48. Look Out! There are Robots All Around
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Listen to the Story Download
Talk of the Nation [ 30 min 18 sec ]
April 4, 2012 text size A A A
Explore David
Marketplace correspondent David Brancaccio wanted to see if
Brancaccio’s
it was possible to drive across the country without interacting
Marketplace series
with a human being – just machines. He discovered how
“Robots Ate My Job.”
technological advances – from factory robots to self-checkout
machines – are changing the future of U.S. jobs.

50. Editorial
When droids take your job
A duo from MIT argue that rapid computer advances may be vaporizing careers faster
than workers can train for new ones.
November 28,2011
The stubbornly high unemployment rate has left policymakers wondering whether there's something
more at work than just an unusually steep recession. Have the country, its businesses and its markets
changed in some fundamental way, leaving millions of Americans with skills that are no longer
needed? Economists are sharply divided on that point, but two from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology make a compelling argument that the technology revolution is vaporizing careers faster
than many Americans can embark on new ones.