The key questions will be: Are you good at working with intelligent machines or not? Are your skills a complement to the skills of the computer, or is the computer doing better without you? Worst of all, are you competing against the computer?
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of adapting one's skills to work alongside intelligent machines rather than competing with them.
Tyler Cowen's quote addresses the evolving relationship between humans and technology, particularly intelligent machines. It highlights the necessity for individuals to assess their abilities in relation to these powerful tools: whether they can enhance their own skills to complement machine capabilities or if they are being rendered obsolete. The quote serves as a cautionary reminder to adapt and thrive in an increasingly automated world, rather than being left behind in competition with technology.
In practice
In a technology conference discussing the future of work.
If you and your skills are a complement to the computer, your wage and labor market prospects are likely to be cheery. If your skills do not complement the computer, you may want to address that mismatch. Ever more people are starting to fall on one side of the divide or the other. That's why 'average is over.'
Economists love to talk about incentives, but the bottom line is that people hate being controlled or manipulated, even when done through voluntary institutions. This is one of the most important tensions in capitalism.
Maybe it's naive to say, but it almost seems like, in the past, people tried to sell you something you would actually need, like a hammer or a broom or a toothbrush. But now there's this notion that they can sell you anything. And all they have to do is convince you that you need it.
In the face of technology, everything becomes a little atavistic.
By 2010 computers will disappear. They'll be so small, they'll be embedded in our clothing, in our environment. Images will be written directly to our retina, providing full-immersion virtual reality, augmented real reality. We'll be interacting with virtual personalities.
Fraud really thrives in moments of great social change and transition. We're in the midst of a technological revolution. That gives con artists huge opportunities. People lose their frame of reference for what can and can't be real.
None of us today know how to get computers to learn with the speed and flexibility of a child.
Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.
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