The AI Awakening: Implications for the Economy [Erik Brynjolfsson]

Technology has played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic, facilitating remote work and automating certain pandemic responses. But it has also accelerated technological adoption, and the “future of work” may now be the present.
Silicon Valley has long been focused on the potential economic disruption of “Artificial General Intelligence”. While that may still be decades away the pandemic has accelerated the development and adoption of machine learning. Further, as major technology companies like Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft re-evaluate long term remote work strategies for their workforce it has become clear that the Post-COVID economy will not look the same as the one we left behind. What do these changes mean for work and workers and what can we do to prepare ourselves?

Erik Brynjolfsson examines the effects of information technologies on business strategy, productivity and performance, digital commerce, and intangible assets. He is the author of several books including, with co-author Andrew McAfee, NYTimes best-seller The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2014) and Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future (2017).