David Autor

The concern should be about whether the expertise that people have is somehow commodified, such that it doesn't matter how much we produce, we don't need the people, or we don't have to pay them much because everyone can do it.

That should be our concern.

So I'm not worried about us getting more productive.

That would be really good news.

Really good news.

I'm worried about us devaluing labor.

Right now, six out of every $10 in the economy is first paid to workers before it goes into the rest of the economy.

The other four is paid to capital.

I'm worried about that fraction falling a lot.

That would be a very serious problem.

We would need a new form of income.

I mean, if we were in a world without labor scarcity, then we would need a totally different system of income distribution.

There would still be scarcity.

There's only so much prestige and esteem.

There's going to be scarcity.

There's going to be competition.

But if labor itself, which is the asset that most of us possess from which we draw our incomes, if all of a sudden that were zeroed out, then we would have incredible productive abundance, and yet most people wouldn't have a claim on it.

What would they buy it with?

So, yeah, I think that's a much, much longer discussion, but I think it's a scenario that if we could avoid it, we should.

I think that would be a very serious societal challenge, profound one.