re: AI is taking all our jobs!!! Oh wait...payroll beats estimates at 303K

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The cotton gin didn't take the jobs away it improved productivity. Most technological advances throughout history have led to booming economies, not higher unemploymen

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Booms in some places and busts in others. Mechanized agriculture in the turn of the century reduced the need for farm labor in agricultural areas by 90%. It caused unemployment and poverty to EXPLODE in those regions, leading to the great Diaspora of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Many many towns were essentially destroyed and abandoned economically. While this was good for society as a whole, it had lasting negative consequences for millions of people that are still felt today.

Increases in productivity are great if the workers share in the fruits of that increase. However, when all of those gains go to capital who simply automates entire classes of people out of a job, it isn’t always the most positive innovation for everyone. What use is a more affordable product if there are no consumers making incomes to purchase it?

Economies can and must adjust and adapt to innovations that eliminate middle class jobs, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be lasting growing pains.