The Lights in the Tunnel
A computer engineer from Silicon Valley employs a powerful thought experiment to explore the economy of the future. An imaginary "tunnel of lights" is used to visualize the economic implications of the new technologies that are likely to appear in the coming years and decades. Challenged are nearly all conventional views of the future and the danger that lies ahead if we do not plan for the impact of rapidly advancing technology is illuminated. It also offers unique insights into how technology will intertwine with globalization to shape the remainder of the 21st century, and explores ways in which the economic realities of the future might offer new approaches to addressing global challenges such as poverty and climate change.
Stats for nerds
10recommend
17mentions
16people
2011–2019years
59% recommend41% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford
Race Against The Machine by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
- 1. Race Against the Machine by Brynjolfsson and McAfee
2. The Second Machine Age by Brynjolfsson and McAfee
3. The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford
4. Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford
5. Average is Over by Tyler Cowen -specifically, the parts about labor market bifurcation and man-machine pairs
Brynjolfsson and McAfee are MIT economists. Top notch. Cowen is also an excellent economist at George Mason.
- His first book "The lights in the tunnel" is a great book too.
- For anyone interested in exploring the topic of human labor becoming increasingly unnecessary in more depth, there was a very forward thinking (published in 2009) book written about this by a computer scientist called "Lights in the Tunnel". The author goes as far as to propose new societal structures to maintain order as this process unfolds. Highly recommended.
- It's an interesting discussion and I find many non-developers unaware of the potential for technology to displace jobs over the next 20 years.
If you're interested in related material I recommend a book by Martin Ford that's freely available online, The Lights In The Tunnel:
- Explanation and analysis of the idea of a 'post-employment economy', i.e. increasing corporate profits and decreasing employment, is given in 'The Lights in the Tunnel' by Martin Ford (which I found to be a good read, although a little verbose).
The main argument is that cheap computerized automation is displacing human workers, and corporate incentives are such that the trend is likely to continue. The long-term problem is that if systemic unemployment grows then the economy as a whole starts to flag b/c consumers no longer have the funds to drive the consumer economy.
His solution is rethinking corporate tax (reducing/eliminating pay-roll taxes which discentivize hiring, and potentially increasing corporate revenue tax). If displacement becomes extreme, he suggests that corporate taxes could fund a basic income for displaced workers to prop up the consumer economy.
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