It also correlates closely with the advent of smart mechanized labor (mostly dumb robots), which of course requires computers, but I think more of a problem. Yo

It also correlates closely with the advent of smart mechanized labor (mostly dumb robots), which of course requires computers, but I think more of a problem. You need a fraction of the number of people to put together a car as you needed in the 70's. I would argue it's not unions, it's not just computers, it's not globalization, it's not physical jobs being expensive to hire in the US, it's that you just need fewer people to do the same stuff period. Across the economy you have examples where low to medium skilled labor is being replaced. First it was manufacturing, next it will be low skilled white collar and so on. Where do those people with low to medium skill jobs go? The fundamental question is whether the information tech revolution is going to have the same effect as the industrial revolution, where eventually everyone ends up better off, and we create broad prosperity. And even if we can build that society, change is happening pretty fast so we may not have the time to create it. It's pretty easy to see a dystopic future where you've only got high education/skill engineering/AI/whatever people at the top, and a large mass of low to medium skilled labor that have been entirely displaced by the inventions of the former. It's not clear how we avoid that, and I'm not convinced the solutions the authors advance are effective.