There is a revolution underway whose ramifications are veryunclear. We may have finally reached the point where technologyactually does reduce the need for all levels of labor.

Take a few examples: high speed stock trading has replacedtraders, computers now do the research for lawyers seeking pointsfor discovery and precedents for trial, new programs can betterdetermine if you should litigate or settle, Google cars are betterand safer drivers than humans, warehouses and many production linesare staffed by computers. One can look around and begin to find arapidly growing number of industries where computers and relatedtechnology is replacing humans and doing a better job. The supercomputer Watson can out think humans on many questions where recallof the answer to a specific question is required. Your newcar is really a computer on wheels, fighter aircraft go so fastthat computers are required to man many of the weapons systems.Robots can perform surgery on humans although controlled by a humandoctor. Figuring out the best diagnosis and treatment protocol isbeing done more and more by computers. ATMs do your banking. Youmake a check deposit with your smart phone. You call the carservice on your smart phone, you reserve a table at the restauranton Open Table and you book your travel on the computer. You shoponline for many of your needs.

It has always been proven thattechnology really produces more and better jobs than previously andthe standard of living has been greatly improved. Not long agoLarry Summers said, “This set of developments is going to be thedefining economic feature of our time.” A company I know recentlybuilt a new factory to make a product they had made in an olderplant. The new plant has 90% fewer workers and produces more. NoObamacare, no diversity laws, no inability to fire someone becauseof their race or gender. No union, no OSHA, no making sure you haveyour quota of blacks and Latinos, and women managers. All you haveare a few technicians to make sure the computers are operatingproperly, and a couple of maintenance people to maintain theproduction equipment. Bookkeeping, warehousing, maintaininginventory in line with customer demand, shipping will be done bymachine. There are no more law libraries so there is no need forspace for that. Less space rented by law firms. Accounting is nowheavily digitized so less need for bodies in offices to count andrecord numbers. Electric meters are read by a computer in theheadquarters. If your cable box goes out it is diagnosed by acomputer at headquarters and a person on the phone is usually ableto solve the problem remotely-no service tech comes to yourhouse.