The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth: Is This Time Different?

[David Morris]

http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.3.31

Every form of non-human power that substitutes and thus tends to reduce the
value of human backs and thighs has been more than offset. In addition,
every form of non-human manipulation that substitutes for and tends to
reduce the value of human fingers and eyes has been more than offset. They
have been more than offset by the fact the every single source of non-human
power--from the horse to the watermill to the steam engine to the diesel to
the jet engine--and every single source of manipulation--from the potter's
wheel to the loom to the spinning jenny to the assembly line to the
mechanized factory--has required a cybernetic control mechanism. Without
such a mechanism, machines are useless. They cannot keep themselves on
course and on track. That was possible only in fantasy and myth--the stone
servitors of of Daedalos, or the self-propelled catering carts of
Hephaestus. And as cybernetic control mechanisms human brains had an
overwhelming productivity edge.

The fear is that this time things really are different. The fear is that,
this time, technological anxiety is not misguided--at least as far as the
social status and possibly the living standards of the median human are
concerned. This fear arises from the fact that the uniqueness of human
brains as cybernetic control mechanisms is no longer as clear. For the
first time, we find our machines substituting not for human backs, things,
eyes, and hands, but for human *brains*.
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