Bloomberg reporter Ben Holland spotlights “The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines” – a new book written by Prof. David Autor, Prof. David Mindell and Elizabeth Reynolds PhD ’10 – about the future of job mobility and social safety nets in the United States.
Prof. David Mindell writes for Forbes about the premise behind his new book, “The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in the Age of Intelligent Machine,” which he wrote with Prof. David Autor, and Elisabeth Reynolds, former director of MIT’s Industrial Performance Center. The new book “concerns demographic shifts in the United States that will generate consistent labor shortages for a generation; the continued profusion of information technology and mobile phones into legacy sectors such as logistics, construction, and transportation; technology-enabled remote work, conferencing, and training; and a long-term need for improved training, reeducation, and upskilling among low – and middle – skill workers,” writes Mindell.
Prof. David Autor speaks with New York Times columnist Peter Coy about the new book he wrote with Prof. David Mindell and Elisabeth Reynolds, “The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines.” Autor explains that: “Most people’s fear of technology is really a fear of capitalism, what the markets will do with the technology. You can’t make a lot of progress if you’re making people poorer at the same time.”
Ben Armstrong, interim executive director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center, speaks with Forbes contributor Ethan Karp about the labor shortage in manufacturing and the future of the field. “We want to have companies that are really driving technology forward and forcing us to adjust our training system to be more technologically advanced,” says Armstrong. “Instead, the problem is that a lot of small and medium manufacturers are offering comparatively low-wage, low-tech jobs that are oftentimes low-skilled. So companies are adapting a lot of their operations to a lower-technology, lower-wage, lower-skill equilibrium.”
Writing for Forbes, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, underscores the need to improve job quality, increase access to education and training, and invest in technologies that augment workers. “The public and private sectors must also be innovative in the ways in which they can collaborate in creating a work of the future that leads to greater shared prosperity,” writes Reynolds.
Reuters reporter Trevor Hunnicutt spotlights how Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, has been tapped by the Biden administration to serve on the National Economic Council.
Forbes contributor Adi Gaskell spotlights how the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future recently released a comprehensive report examining the future of work. Gaskell writes that the Task Force's report emphasizes the “pressing issues of our time as one of improving the quality of jobs to ensure that prosperity is shared across the economy.”
Writing for the Financial Times, Ryosuke Harada highlights a new MIT report that emphasizes the “importance of education and investment in human resources and warns that in the absence of a strategy, jobs will be lost and divisions in society will widen.”
Writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, research scientist Ben Armstrong explores how “silent meetings” can help encourage to participate in virtual classes. “My case for silent meetings is that they can help educators examine the questions we find important while giving students more time to deliberate before they discuss,” writes Armstrong. “And they can help students who might otherwise feel excluded from conversations contribute new ideas in tandem with their classmates.”
Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, speaks with Annie Nova of CNBC about the Task Force’s new report, which lays out recommendations for ensuring Americans are able to secure good jobs in an era of automation. “We’re suggesting that people have access to affordable education and training,” says Reynolds. “I think there’s a real opportunity to help transition people and educate workers without four-year degrees.”
Axios reporter Bryan Walsh writes that a new report by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future makes policy recommendations for ensuring American workers are able to secure good jobs. “If we deploy automation in the same labor market system we have now," says Prof. David Mindell, "we're going to end up with the same results.”
Three years after President L. Rafael Reif delivered an “intellectual call to arms” to examine the impact of technology on jobs, the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future has published its final set of recommendations. “In an extraordinarily comprehensive effort, they included labor market analysis, field studies and policy suggestions for changes in skills-training programs, the tax code, labor laws and minimum-wage rates,” writes Steve Lohr for The New York Times.
Telegraph reporter David Millward explores how MIT researchers are helping make the Greater Boston area a hub for robotics research. “MIT has been really focused on how to accelerate innovation at the university and facilitate its transition outside the university into viable businesses,” explains Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the Work of the Future project.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Elisabeth Reynolds, executive director of the Industrial Performance Center, suggests that advanced manufacturing could create new job opportunities in the U.S. Reynolds notes that “advanced manufacturing, which combines new information technology with advanced machinery, is reinvigorating manufacturing and creating opportunities in the United States that did not seem feasible just over a decade ago.”
The Economist highlights an MIT study that shows Massachusetts is outperforming Silicon Valley in creating life sciences startups, and credits MIT for its role in driving innovation in Kendall Square. “The Boston metropolitan area...seems to be holding its own as the world’s pre-eminent biotech hub.”