Results for “average is over”
1567 found

Chat with James Pethokoukis on *Average is Over*

Here is one of several interesting bits:

Well the Brynjolfsson and McAffee book, “Race Against the Machine,” that’s a great book.  It’s influenced my thinking.  I just read their second forthcoming book, “The Second Machine Age.”  They focus more on automation than I do and less on inequality and much less on social issues.  But I think of myself as thinking along the same lines as they do.  But they and I, we differ a lot about the past.  So they don’t think the past has been a great stagnation.  I agree with them a lot about the future, but disagree with them a lot about the past.

Gordon, I disagree with him about the future, but agree with him about the past.  So Gordon, like me, sees a great stagnation.  And he thinks it will never ever end.  I think that’s crazy.  Even if it were true, how would you know?  But I see a lot of areas, not only artificial intelligence, but medicine and genomics, where the advances are not on the table now.  But it’s hard to believe there’s not going to be a lot more coming.  Science is very healthy.  There’re new discoveries all the time. The lags are much longer than we’d like to think, but absolutely progress is not over, and we’re about to see a new wave of progress over the lifetimes of our children.

The full dialog is here.

My *New Yorker* interview on *Average is Over*

It was with Joshua Rothman, here is one bit:

The whole narrative you unfold—intelligent software, human-computer cooperation, deferring to our smartphones—sounds very futuristic. Do you think we’re living through a historically unprecedented period?

I don’t accept the view that this new era is so different from every time in the past. Consider the industrial revolution, which starts in Great Britain in the seventeen-seventies or seventeen-eighties. For a long time, you had rising inequality, fairly stagnant living standards, a lot of problems adjusting. Of course, we did eventually get over it in the longer run, and it was much better for everyone. But it took, arguably, fifty or sixty years for us to make that transition. I think this future wave of inequality, which is already underway, will be a lot like that. It will take us decades to make the transition. Those decades will bring a lot of problems. But I think that in the much longer run—which is not what the book is about—it will be much more positive than it will seem during the transition era. I think this period fits quite nicely with historical precedent.

There is also this:

In the U.S., New York City is probably the most unequal place we’ve got. And I find it striking how many people believe, first, that inequality is terrible, and that this vision for the future is horrible, and, at the same time, think, “Oh, I love New York City!”

We already have places with extreme inequality, but life there goes on, and we don’t recoil in horror. The non-wealthy parts of New York are very vital, and have the best of humanity in them. We have intuitions [about equality and inequality] that are derived from American post-war history. I don’t want to dismiss those intuitions altogether, but I think we need to be more skeptical of them.

Facts about Puerto Rico (Caribbean Average is Over)

Puerto Rico’s output has declined 16 percent since 2004. Its recession, triggered by the 2006 phaseout of a federal manufacturing tax break, began before that of the mainland and lasted longer. Only about a million of Puerto Rico’s 3.6 million people are employed. Not coincidentally, Puerto Rico’s population shrank 4 percent in the past decade, as many of the best and brightest sought opportunity on the U.S. mainland.

Here is a bit more.

Average is Over for public sector investment too

Medicare spending continues to rise, but in other areas we are seeing significant cuts:

Kirk Dale, the township supervisor of Marlette, Michigan, has first-hand experience of what it means to spend less on infrastructure. Thirty years ago, he felt his small town was on the rise when Cooper Road, a local residential street, was first paved. But today, Marlette cannot afford the maintenance and has joined a number of small communities that have pulverised their streets and gone back to gravel.

“You make a calculated, rational decision on which mile to do,” said Mr Dale, the township supervisor. “And then you look long-term down the line saying ‘Hey, even if we were to pave this, how are we going to repave this 10 or 15 years down the line?’”

Is that good news or bad news?  By the way:

Gross capital investment by the public sector has dropped to just 3.6 per cent of US output compared with a postwar average of 5 per cent, according to figures compiled by the Financial Times.

The FT article is here.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch on *Average is Over*

Here is one excerpt:

“If you’re not a good [chess] player,” Cowen writes, “the fact that you studied with a top teacher doesn’t mean a thing. … There is nothing [in chess] comparable to the glow resulting from a Harvard degree: Announcing ‘I studied with Rybka’ [a powerful chess engine] would bring gales of laughter, since anyone can do that. … The company selling Rybka tries to make its product replicable and universal, whereas Harvard tries to make its product as exclusive as possible. Now, which model do you think will spread and gain influence in the long run?”

Before you answer that, consider this: A year of tuition, room and board at Harvard will set you back more than $50,000. You can get a copy of Rybka for about $50.

The full piece is here.

Rental car *Average is Over*

A new car rental service at Los Angeles International Airport will allow customers to pick up an Audi A4 without ever having to interact with a clerk.

The company is called Silvercar, and it aims to fill a niche in the car rental market, according to chief executive Luke Schneider. Like other companies seeking to reinvent travel, Silvercar allows customers to streamline the entire process using their mobile phones.

“Mobile plus travel is a beautiful combination,” Schneider said. “To get into a Silvercar, you literally scan the car with your phone. That’s how the doors unlock and you jump in.”

The company’s entire fleet consists of silver Audi 4s, an entry level luxury car made in Germany that starts at around $35,000.

There is further information here, and for the pointer I thank Zenon Zygmont.

President Obama on *Average is Over*

NPR’s Steve Inskeep: The economist Tyler Cowen was on our program the other day. He’d written a book about income inequality. And he argued, based on his analysis, that it’s really inevitable, it’s going to get worse, and the thing for public officials to do is to adapt to it rather than try to change it.

Obama: Well, I don’t accept that. America is, always [has] been, at its best when everybody who’s willing to work hard has a chance to succeed. There is no doubt that these trends are powerful and they’re global. I mean, we’re seeing the same trends in Scandinavian countries that historically were — prided themselves on great equality. We’ve seen it magnified in less developed countries and emerging markets. So these are global trends that we’re going to have to fight against.

But if we are educating a workforce that has the skills they need to compete, if we have a tax system that is fair and not rewarding those who can afford high-priced accountants and lawyers, if we are rebuilding our infrastructure in this country, not only to make us more competitive but because those create jobs that can’t be exported, if we are increasing a minimum wage so that it is reflective of the same purchasing power that existed many years ago, if we’re creating more ladders of opportunity for people who are locked in neighborhoods that have been abandoned and small towns where factories have closed — if we do those things, then we can lessen the impact of these broader market forces.

But what is true is that globalization and technology are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they create a situation in which consumer goods are cheap and they create a situation in which we can have access to goods and services that we would never have had before. On the other hand, it does create a situation in which a lot of the jobs that are created are at the very top, high-skilled, you know, creative work that can’t be replicated, or at the bottom, low-skilled jobs. What we don’t have are those jobs in the middle that we have to really focus on building, because we can outcompete anybody when we have smart policies.

His answer is good.  The link and complete dialogue (mostly about the government shutdown) is here.

EconTalk with Russ Roberts on *Average is Over*

You will find the podcast and text here, and Russ is as always an excellent interviewer.  Excerpt:

TC: And I think 50 years from now we’ll look back on that and be shocked at the notion that so many poor people got to live in Manhattan, Los Angeles, wherever we are talking about. Because in the future they will be in other places with lower rents.

*The Economist* reviews *Average is Over*

The very interesting and provocative review is by Lexington, here is one excerpt:

Mr Cowen’s vision is neither warm nor fuzzy. In his future, mistakes and even mediocrity will be hard to hide: eg, an ever-expanding array of ratings will expose so-so doctors and also patients who do not take their medicines or otherwise spell trouble. Young men will struggle in a labour market that rewards conscientiousness over muscle. With incomes squeezed, many Americans will head to the sort of cheap, sun-baked sprawling exurbs that give the farmers’-market-and-bike-lanes set heartburn. Many will accept rotten public services in exchange for low taxes. This may sound a bit grim, but it reflects real-world trends: 60% of employers already check the credit ratings of job candidates; young male unemployment is high and migrants have been flooding to low-tax, low-service Texas for years.

Read the whole thing.  And here is further book coverage from The Economist.

The Daily Beast reviews *Average is Over*

This is by Robert Herritt, here is one excerpt:

…in filling in his vision, Cowen lets lose a barrage of teased-out implications. For one, not everyone will need to be a Zuckerberg-level coding wunderkind to stay in a job. Since machine intelligence makes it easier for businesses to orchestrate complex, team-based projects, skilled managers will be prized employees. Those put out of work by some less error-prone descendent of Siri, he predicts, will move to professions where the trustworthiness and conscientiousness of a flesh-and-blood human are most required, whether they become valets, babysitters, interior designers, or carpenters. Since, in this new world, “Rewards will flow readily to top talent, not to the socially well-connected,” self-motivation and the ability to repeatedly “reeducate” in new fields will also go a long way. In such a “hyper-meritocratic” environment, those adept at coaching will be in high demand (as Cowen sees it, everyone from CEOs to elite physicians will have a professional motivator on the payroll). Aided by machines, scientists will develop theories so complex that the general public could “be shut out from a scientific understanding of the world.” And as demographic and fiscal realities catch up with our public sector, “aid from the government will increasingly fall short of a growing set of demands.”

In stark contrast to other practitioners of freewheeling prognostication, Cowen has focused much of his energy on answering questions that have real relevance to ordinary people. Many parts of the book can be read as an advice manual for the apprehensive undergraduate struggling to pick a career path in a turbulent job market. For instance, he predicts that proliferating demands on the attention of the most well-off Americans will make marketing “a seminal sector for our future economy.” He goes on to assert that “[i]f you have an unusual ability to spot, recruit, and direct those who work well with computers, even if you don’t work well with computers yourself, the contemporary world will make you rich.”

The full review is here, and for the pointer I thank Carrie Conko.

Arnold Kling reviews *Average is Over*

The review is here, here is one excerpt:

For me, the most interesting chapter was the one on education. Tyler points out that the content-supplying and testing/grading functions of a professor can be automated relatively easily. The main role for humans is to supply motivation, coaching, and inspiration. I am reminded of an experiment in India in which grandmothers with no subject-matter knowledge are recruited to encourage young children to learn by praising their work.

Diane Coyle reviews *Average is Over*

The review is entitled “Not Average At All,” here is one excerpt:

Tyler Cowen has followed up the best-selling The Great Stagnation with another profoundly interesting book on the impact of new technology on the economy and beyond. Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation picks up the theme of the disruption technological change and the consequent restructuring of business and focuses on the effects on individual jobs and what people might be able to do to safeguard their livelihood.

The rest of the review is here, and it is interesting throughout.  This was one of my favorite sentences:

Steadily, without discussion, a moral framework is becoming encoded into the machines around us, and by the habits of use that are developing.

You can pre-order the book on Amazon here.  On Barnes and Noble here.  On Indiebound.org here.  And from Penguin here.  It is due out this Thursday.