History and Future of Workplace Automation

History and Future of Workplace Automation
Student Name
Institution
History and Future of Workplace Automation
Over the previous two centuries, pundits and speculators alike have been offering warnings that automation and the advancement of technology were on the path to decimating considerable numbers of middle-class jobs. Despite this foreboding, new technology and automation have not rendered human labor useless. For instance, the ratio of employment to the population saw an increase over the last century (Autor, 2015). Granted, the rate of unemployment varies with each economic cycle. However, in the long-run, the unemployment rate does not increase.
The most concerned parties with regards to the issue of erosion of employment opportunities by automation argue that historical precedents are not sufficient to predict how the future will play out. Advances in technology have facilitated the emergence of more robust computers, sophisticated robots, and the rise o...