News Summary

• And tomorrow?Simon Johnson, Co-Author, "Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity": It could be something that helps workers be safer, helps them be more productive, and thought will get a high wage, or the same Spot could take people's jobs..
• And so it remained for almost a century.But since about 1980, automation has outpaced the creation of shared prosperity jobs, says Johnson.Simon Johnson:People with a lot of education have done well..
• And then if you want to use a particular machine…Paul Solman:And so, in fits and starts, the new factories of the 19th century prompted the long process of harnessing technology.Simon Johnson:They offered jobs to people who also didn't have a lot of education..
• So, I think it's in the balance.Paul Solman:In "Power and Progress," economists Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu surveyed the history of technological progress and came to a sobering, if familiar, conclusion.Simon Johnson:Technology changes all the time, but it doesn't necessarily turn into shared prosperity..
• could be a tool to rebuild the middle class or it could be a way in which the middle class, the remains of it get hollowed out further.Paul Solman:These are not real people.Artificial intelligence, today's technology frontier..
• It leads to plenty of questions, including this: Does innovation lead to broad gains for everyone?Economics correspondent Paul Solman focused on the connections between technology and prosperity with one of the co-authors of a recent book.Paul Solman:Spot, the wonder dog, using A.I..