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 is as a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and as the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow in Economic Growth at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). His research 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).