The Star Trek replicator stands as the ultimate dream of on-demand manufacturing. The bad news is that despite advances in 3D printing we are many breakthroughs (including nearly abundant energy) away from realizing that dream. The good news is that we are finally finding ourselves on the cusp of a paradigm shift in manufacturing away from mass production to fast, low cost, small series (including single part) capabilities. The shift is being led by a new crop of startups, including Plethora ...

The Star Trek replicator stands as the ultimate dream of on-demand manufacturing. The bad news is that despite advances in 3D printing we are many breakthroughs (including nearly abundant energy) away from realizing that dream. The good news is that we are finally finding ourselves on the cusp of a paradigm shift in manufacturing away from mass production to fast, low cost, small series (including single part) capabilities. The shift is being led by a new crop of startups, including Plethora ...

I have written before that it is OK to worry about the effects of automation on work. One frequently encountered response is that this worry is wrong, that having it is committing the Lump of Labor fallacy. Marc in particular has been bringing it up a lot, including on Twitter, in a blog post, and a recent interview. But this is a red herring. One can legitimately worry about the transition even if one believes that the Lump of Labor fallacy is in fact a fallacy. So let me posit for a moment ...

I have written before that it is OK to worry about the effects of automation on work. One frequently encountered response is that this worry is wrong, that having it is committing the Lump of Labor fallacy. Marc in particular has been bringing it up a lot, including on Twitter, in a blog post, and a recent interview. But this is a red herring. One can legitimately worry about the transition even if one believes that the Lump of Labor fallacy is in fact a fallacy. So let me posit for a moment ...

Yesterday I saw a funny cartoon about self driving cars by Scott Adams from the perspective of a robot with an attitude:When I discuss the impact of automation on the labor market I sometimes run into the argument that self driving cars are still years away and that there are a lot of edge cases to solve before they will replace human drivers. That argument makes it appear as if there was some distinct moment in the future where we finally say “hurrah, the self driving car is completely finis...

Yesterday I saw a funny cartoon about self driving cars by Scott Adams from the perspective of a robot with an attitude:When I discuss the impact of automation on the labor market I sometimes run into the argument that self driving cars are still years away and that there are a lot of edge cases to solve before they will replace human drivers. That argument makes it appear as if there was some distinct moment in the future where we finally say “hurrah, the self driving car is completely finis...