David Brooks, "A Little Reality on Immigration": Only Rocket Scientists Need Apply

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In a Times of Israel article entitled "Top Israeli researcher: Robots could take over most jobs within 30 years," we are told (my emphasis in red):

"Moshe Vardi, of Houston, Texas’s Rice University, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington on Saturday that society’s major challenge in the coming decades will be to find meaning in a mostly automated life.

'We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task,' Vardi said. 'Robots are doing more and more jobs that people used to do. Pharmacists, prison guards, boning chicken, bartending, more and more jobs we’re able to mechanize them.'

With robots eliminating many middle-class jobs, Vardi said unemployment could rise beyond 50 percent."

Thirty years? I most likely won't be around to see it, but it would appear to make sense why people entering the job market today might be a little anxious about their future sources of income.

Which brings me to David Brooks's New York Times op-ed entitled "A Little Reality on Immigration," in which Brooks addresses Donald Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out of the US. Noting that "by 2044, America will be a majority-minority country [nice oxymoron, David]," Brooks concludes (my emphasis in red):

"Donald Trump’s G.O.P. is a rear-window party pining for a white America that is never coming back. Ronald Reagan’s G.O.P., and maybe some future G.O.P., will fix the immigration system and attract the people who will make the country innovative, dynamic and interesting for decades to come."

Ah yes, people who are going to make the US "innovative, dynamic and interesting for decades to come." If indeed, unemployment is going to skyrocket to 50 percent, things could indeed become "interesting." Meanwhile, maybe only rocket scientists should apply for Green Cards.

Thomas Friedman, "I Made the Robot Do It": Will Robotics Create New Jobs?

Note the contradiction in Thomas Friedman's latest op-ed entitled "I Made the Robot Do It" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/i-made-the-robot-do-it.html). Visiting the design workshop of Rethink Robotics in Massachusetts, Friedman quotes Rodney Brooks, the company's founder:

"The minute you say 'robots' people say: 'It’s going to take away jobs.' But that is not true. It doesn’t take away jobs. It will change how you do them."

To which Friedman responds:

"Actually, the robots will eliminate jobs, just as the PC did, but they be will lower-skilled ones. And the robots will also create new jobs or enlarge existing ones, but they will be jobs that require more skills."

Although I am not familiar with Rethink Robotics, it stands to reason that improved robotics will eliminate lower-skilled jobs, i.e. the ones that are currently being outsourced to sweatshops in China, Vietnam and Pakistan.

Friedman concludes:

"This is the march of progress. It eliminates bad jobs, empowers good jobs, but always demands more skill and creativity and always enables fewer people to do more things. We went through the same megashift when our agricultural economy was replaced by the industrial economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, what this election should be about is how we spawn thousands of Rethinks that create new industries, new jobs and productivity tools."

Yes, improved robotics will allow fewer people to do more things. It could also reduce outsourcing from the US. But will it create new industries and jobs?

I'm not so optimistic.