From industrial machinery to computers, every major technology has sparked fears about job displacement, but work has evolved rather than disappeared. We’ll explore the economic logic behind when machines replace human workers and when they make us more productive, using historical examples to illuminate patterns that help us think more clearly about AI and automation today. We won’t try to predict exactly what comes next, but we’ll introduce some basic economic thinking that can help make sense of these complex dynamics.
Cormac O’Dea, Assistant Professor of Economics received the 2025 Lex Hixon ‘63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences.
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