Expertise, Artificial Intelligence, and the Work of the Future

Will recent advances in AI complement human expertise, thereby increasing its value, or render it increasingly unnecessary, thus reducing experts’ earnings potential (even if jobs are not in net eliminated)? Autor will frame this question through the lens of three technological revolutions of the last two centuries: the Industrial Revolution, the Computer Revolution, and the AI Revolution. In each, the types of expertise rewarded changed substantially, with vastly uneven consequences for workers in different occupations and possessing different education levels. These forces will play out differently in the AI era than in preceding decades. While the future is not a forecasting exercise—it is a collective creation, not a preordained fate—Autor will lay out the opportunities that AI opens for the labor market, as well as some of the risks it poses.