g-f(2)81 THE BIG PICTURE OF THE DIGITAL AGE, MIT TASK FORCE ON THE WORK OF THE FUTURE, Enable decision-makers to ask the right questions.

Extra-condensed knowledge

The Context. 

• A fabulous multidisciplinary MIT team. 
• Its goals are to understand the relationships between emerging technologies and work, and to explore strategies to enable a future of shared prosperity.

The Problem. 

• Alarmist rhetoric animates today’s public conversation about technology and work. 
• Technological and economic shifts have created social pain in wide swaths of industrialized economies.
• There is no guarantee that the fruits of the bounty will reach the typical worker—and the uncertainty is greater still for women and minorities. 
• A substantial majority of people believe that emerging technologies will magnify inequality and make high-paying jobs harder to find.

The Solution.

• MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future aims to identify a constructive path forward—grounded in evidence of what is happening today, deploying deep expertise in technology and the social sciences, and applying reasonable assumptions and extrapolations to anticipate what might happen tomorrow.
• This report will not provide definitive answers, but instead aims to enable decision-makers to ask the right questions. 

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Condensed knowledge  

• g-f(2)80 THE BIG PICTURE OF THE DIGITAL AGE, MIT, The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines. 
• A fabulous multidisciplinary team.
• Exceptional research and results.
• Its goals are to understand the relationships between emerging technologies and work, and to explore strategies to enable a future of shared prosperity.
• The Task Force is co-chaired by Professors David Autor and David Mindell, with Dr. Elisabeth Reynolds as Executive Director; its members include more than twenty faculty drawn from twelve departments, as well as a dozen graduate students. 
• The Task Force has also been advised by boards of key stakeholders from industry, academia, education, labor and philanthropy. 
• For the past year, the Task Force has been working to bring grounded, empirical understanding and insight into the ongoing debate about what is occurring today and what we can expect in the next decade.
• Alarmist rhetoric animates today’s public conversation about technology and work: Robots are taking our jobs. AI will mean the end of work. Three-fourths of all jobs will be automated. Prepare for mass unemployment. Robots can’t take your job if you’re retired.
• These forecasts may be unduly grim, but they reflect valid underlying concerns. Technological and economic shifts have created social pain in wide swaths of industrialized economies.
• The last four decades of U.S. history showed that even if technological advances deliver rising productivity, there is no guarantee that the fruits of this bounty will reach the typical worker—and the uncertainty is greater still for women and minorities. 
• These discouraging facts may help to explain why, despite the tightest U.S. labor market in decades, a substantial majority of people believe that emerging technologies will magnify inequality and make high-paying jobs harder to find.
• With these uncomfortable truths in mind, MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future aims to identify a constructive path forward—grounded in evidence of what is happening today, deploying deep expertise in technology and the social sciences, and applying reasonable assumptions and extrapolations to anticipate what might happen tomorrow.
• This report will not provide definitive answers, but instead aims to enable decision-makers to ask the right questions. Due to the urgency of the topic, we offer preliminary insights that may help to frame public debate and public policy as Task Force members conduct deeper analyses and deliver a final report. 

Category 2: The Big Picture of the Digital Age

[genioux fact produced, deduced or extracted from MIT]

Type of essential knowledge of this “genioux fact”: Essential Deduced and Extracted Knowledge (EDEK).

Type of validity of the "genioux fact". 

• Inherited from sources + Supported by the knowledge of one or more experts + Supported by a research.

Authors of the genioux fact

Fernando Machuca

References

The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines, DAVID AUTOR, DAVID MINDELL, ELISABETH REYNOLDS, November 17, 2020, MIT Work of the Future, MIT.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DAVID AUTOR

CO-CHAIR, MIT TASK FORCE ON THE WORK OF THE FUTURE

Ford Professor of Economics

Labor Studies Program Director, National Bureau of Economic Research

David Autor is Ford Professor of Economics and associate head of the MIT Department of Economics. His scholarship explores the labor market impacts of technological change and globalization, earnings inequality, and disability insurance and labor supply. Autor has received several awards for his scholarship, including the National Science Foundation Career Award; an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship; and the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions in the field of labor economics—and for his teaching, including MIT’s James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for excellence in teaching; the Undergraduate Economic Association Teaching Award; and the Faculty Appreciation Award from the MIT Technology and Policy Program. He was recognized by Bloomberg as one of the 50 people who defined global business in 2017. 

DAVID MINDELL

CO-CHAIR, MIT TASK FORCE ON THE WORK OF THE FUTURE

Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Founder and CEO, Humatics Corporation

David Mindell, an engineer and historian, is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT. An expert in human relationships with robotics and autonomous systems, he has led or participated in more than 25 oceanographic expeditions. From 2005 to 2011, he was director of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society. He is co-founder of Humatics Corporation, which develops technologies to transform how robots and autonomous systems work in human environments. Mindell has a BS in electrical engineering and BA in literature, both from Yale University, and a PhD in the history of technology from MIT.

ELISABETH REYNOLDS

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MIT TASK FORCE ON THE WORK OF THE FUTURE

Principal Research Scientist

Executive Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center

Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Elisabeth Reynolds is a principal research scientist and executive director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center, as well as a lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP). Her research examines systems of innovation and economic development more broadly with a focus on advanced manufacturing, growing innovative companies to scale, and building innovation capacity in developed and developing countries. Prior to coming to MIT, Reynolds was the director of the City Advisory Practice at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a non-profit focused on job and business growth in urban areas. She has been actively engaged in efforts to rebuild manufacturing capabilities in the U.S., most recently as a member of the Massachusetts Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative. She is a graduate of Harvard College and holds a Master’s in Economics from the University of Montreal as well as a PhD from MIT DUSP.