AI and the Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Age of the Thinking Machine

British economist Roger Bootle, winner of the prestigious Wolfson Prize, writes about how the widespread adoption of robotization and artificial intelligence in the long term will affect the development of humankind. The author examines how new technologies are already influencing today’s inflation, wealth and power distribution, education, leisure, and business—and analyzes what innovative future awaits all of us, based on facts.

Bootle describes a model in which workers’ processes will be fully automated, and robots will replace employees partially—yet, without a doubt, specialists will still remain important, and their productivity levels will be influenced by the same technologies. Moreover, completely new types of activities, products, and services will appear. The economist adheres to an optimistic scenario: humanity has already gone through an industrial revolution, and the author provides a brief history of the economy over the last 200 years, proving that technologies positively affected people’s well-being.

Bootle raises questions of ethics and balance in the global market if the spread of AI is not the same across the world. The author also discusses the key technologies that are already shaping our tomorrow—valuable knowledge that will help understand which skills we should bet on developing.