Assignment
Context
Technology is having profound effects on long-term economic growth. Automation and digital advances are shifting labour demand away from routine low- to middle-level skills to higher-level and more sophisticated analytical, technical, and managerial skills. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the world and blurring the difference between robots and human beings in terms of thinking capacities.
Use these articles
Richard E. Ball (1957), "The Impact of Technology on Economic Growth", The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1957, Vol. 16, No. 3 pp. 281-290
Economist (2016), The return of the machinery question
McKinsey & Company (2018), How will automation affect jobs, skills, and wages?
Task
A. Within the macroeconomic context, explain the mechanism in which technological advances impact the long-term economic growth.
B. What is the "machinery question"? Whether the current advances in AI differ from the traditional "machinery question"?
C. Do you agree that AI has the potential to replace labour forces in some professions? Use one or two real world examples to support your arguments.
D. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla (which is an AI-intensive manufactory), and the richest person in the world once argued "Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming". Why does this AI advocate argue for a large population?
E. How will your own profession be affected by the advances in A, in this case, accounting.