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.
The Internet allows the small guy a global marketplace. But technology is harmful in the sense that we get too much information from it. Because of the web we get 10 times the amount of noise we ever got, which makes harmful fallacies far more likely.
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
I think when you get older, things come along that you know are a test in some way of your ability to stay with it. And when e-mail came along, I was just going to fall in love with it. And I did. I can't believe it now - it's like one of those ex-husbands that you think, 'What was I thinking?'
You have to assume that everything you do is public knowledge. Everything. Because now everyone is a reporter. Everyone is a photographer.
It is possible to think that the Internet will be a net positive for society while admitting that there are significant downsides - after all, it's not a revolution if nobody loses.
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