Kevin Surace argues that automation creates more jobs than it destroys. When GM installed its first robot in 1961, it cut car manufacturing costs from $300,000 to $20,000, spurring demand and hiring. Surace predicts 80% of today's tasks will be automated by 2050, but says cheaper goods drive economic growth and employment.
I'm going to make this prediction: 80% of today's tasks will all be automated by 2050, but probably creating more jobs than ever. The very first industrial robot was actually at General Motors in 1961. And you go, well, this thing by now must have taken hundreds of thousands of jobs. Well, actually, GM, I believe, now employs more people than it's ever employed. This is a fascinating thing, except if you didn't have any robotics at GM, it would cost about $300,000 in In today's dollars to make a car. So in fact, what did the robot do? It drove down the relative cost of vehicles so that some vehicles can be in the even $20,000 range, right? And for $20,000, a lot of people can afford a vehicle. So it drove down the relative cost, which drove up the demand. If you drive down the relative cost, you drive up the demand. When you drive down the relative cost of goods and services, you drive up the demand for those goods and services. And when you drive up the demand, at a company, then that happens at many companies, it happens at all companies, and eventually the country itself does better.
