Robert Gordon and Erik Brynolfsson debated their opposing views of where the economy is headed at TED2013. Last week, they brought the debate to a TED Conversation. Photos: James Duncan Davidson

Last week, TED speakers Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolfsson joined us for a live, one-hour debate on the future of the US economy.  It was a furious hour of typing, with both speakers contributing just over 1,500 words in response to a wide variety of user questions.  A few highlights:

Ryan Zeigler asks:

Mr. Brynjolfsson, you stated in your talk that you feel that we need to “race with machines” rather than against them. In what manner do you feel that this effects the future of education?

Erik Brynjolfsson responds:

We really need to reinvent education. My industry has lagged other industries in digitizing. Far behind music and other media, finance, manufacturing, retailing, etc.  But that’s good news: lots of room to improve.  Digitization of education will do two things:

1. Much higher quality and lower cost as very best teachers and methods reach larger audiences. Examples: superstars like Sal Khan of Khan Academy or physics lessons from best MIT profs at EdX.
.
2. More importantly, gather enormous data about what’s working and not working. Apply big data techniques to improve teaching methods and to personalize how things are taught. Adapt pace and methods, based on students unique situation. Continuous learning by the educators, not just students. My students are already doing this to optimize ad clicks – can soon do it for education.

Michael Noyes asks:

Capitalism has created more wealth by far for more people than any other system. However, have we reached a point in our technological history when the pendulum must swing back toward more socialist economics to achieve more prosperity for more people?

Robert J. Gordon responds:

You have to distinguish between “socialism” and the capitalist welfare state as exemplified by Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. Socialism involves government ownership of the means of production and was practiced by the postwar UK Labour government which nationalized steel, transport, etc. It was Thatcher’s achievement to reverse all that, and Britain went from being a laggard to one of Europe’s most dynamic economies.

Yes, we need more of a welfare state, particularly to prepare children in poverty to compete in our educational system. Now they are dropping out of high school and condemning themselves to lives of manual labor and unemployment.

Theresa Sanker asks:

When are America’s economic priorities going to shift toward education, saving, and long-term investment, and away from excessive reliance on military power and cheap energy?

Erik Brynjolfsson responds:

When more people like you demand it. Simple as that.

Robert Gordon adds:

Heckman has shown that the problem is not that we don’t spend enough resources on education. Reducing class sizes has no effect. The problem is that educational resources are not distributed evenly. In an ideal world we would get rid of property taxation as the basis for educational finance, since that gives an advantage to communities with wealthy residents. We should have education funded by a nationwide value-added tax.

The problem with our military, besides the needless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the endless buckets of cash poured into ridiculous projects like the F-35 fighter which has no known enemy to justify its cost. We built the B-17 in WWII for $250,000 per plane!

Finally, what’s wrong with cheap energy? Are you in favor of expensive energy?

With 113 excellent questions and answers, this was a fascinating and informative debate. Don’t miss the rest of the responses, available on TED Conversations »

Robert Gordon: The death of innovation, the end of growthEconomists Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolffson see very different things when they look at the stagnation of the U.S. economy in recent years. It’s almost as if they’re looking at an optical illusion image – one seeing a candlestick while the other sees two faces just inches apart. In today’s talks, they both outlined their thoughts.

Gordon sees the candlestick — he believes that the growth could be tapering off for good and that our best innovations may be behind us. As he points out, between 1900 and 1960, we went from traveling by a horse and buggy to taking Boeing 707s. But in the sixty years since, we haven’t learned to go any faster at a mass commercial level. What’s wrong? In his talk, he outlines four headwinds which are keeping us from continued growth at the pace of the past two centuries: demographics, education, debt and inequality.

Erik Brynjolfsson: The key to growth? Race with the machinesMeanwhile, Brynjolfsson sees the faces. He says that the stagnation may simply be growing pains as we move from an economy based on production to one based on ideas. He also looks to the past for an example, taking us back 120 years to the Second Industrial Revolution. While all the tools were in place for mass production, it took three decades for productivity to skyrocket. The first generation of managers — who had old ideas about systems and workflows – had to age out of the system for growth to start. This is where Brynjolfsson thinks we are now. He sees another wave of innovation in our future — if humans can learn to work alongside computers and robots in more symbiotic ways.

Click the links above to watch these two fascinating talks. And then watch this 12-minute debate between the Gordon and Brynjolfsson on what it means to work today … and what it will mean in the future.

Do you think we are witnessing the end of innovation? Is growth over? Did either speaker here change your opinion? Explain in the comments.

Here are the speakers in this session. Click their name to read a recap of their talk:

The explosive creative direction and choreography of Rich + Tone Talauega has been featured in tours and music videos of pop icons like Michael Jackson, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez.

Elon Musk is the CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors and the CEO/CTO of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).

Mary Lou Jepsen discovers astonishing ways to integrate digital screens into daily life.

At 14, Taylor Wilson became the youngest person to achieve fusion — with a reactor made in his garage. Now he wants to save our seaports from nuclear terror.

Violinist Ji-Hae Park shares the joy of music.

Since the counterculture peak of the 1960s, Stewart Brand has been reframing our view. Now, with biotech accelerating four times faster than digital technology, Stewart Brand has a bold new plan to share.

Arunachalam Muruganantham may not seem like the most obvious person to have started a revolution in sanitary napkins — after all, he is male. But in this funny and uplifting talk, given at the TED Talent Search in Bangalore, Muruganantham describes how he is enabling women in India to make their own pads — all as a gift for his wife, Shanti.

“What you did in your early marriage days — you tried to impress your wife. I did the same,” says Muruganantham in this talk, describing how he one day noticed his wife carrying something behind her back. “It was a nasty rag cloth — I don’t even use that cloth to clean my two-wheeler.”

It was a moment when Muruganantham realized that his wife had to choose between buying feminine hygiene products and buying milk. And it launched a powerful idea — that making pads would be far more cost-effective then buying them. The problem: when his wife and sisters refused to test his creations, he had to devise a system to try them out for himself.

“That [experience] made me bow down to any woman in front of me and give full respect,” says Muruganantham. “Those five days, I will never forget — lousy days.”

To find out how Muruganantham created a machine that lets anyone make their own high-quality cotton pads — and why he decided to open source the blueprints — watch his talk. It’s a good reminder that innovation doesn’t just flow from developed nations to developing ones, but that amazing ideas can travel in both directions. After the jump, watch several more talks about innovation in India and how new solutions can be created if the resources of the community are taken into account.

Vinay Venkatraman: “Technology crafts” for the digitally underserved
Vinay Venkatraman is not your traditional designer. He has created a digital projector for a school out of a mobile phone, a lunchbox and a flashlight, as well as medical triage monitor from an alarm clock and computer mouse. In this talk from TEDxSummit, Venkatraman explains his idea of “technology crafts,” which use widely available parts to approximate technologies not affordable in rural India.

Anil Gupta: India’s hidden hotbeds of invention
“People may be economically poor, but they are not poor in the mind,” says Anil Gupta of the population in India. “The minds on the margin are not marginal minds.” In this talk from TEDIndia 2009, Gupta shares his work supporting entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas that are unable to flourish because of poverty. Gupta’s Honey Bee Network helps unsung inventors build the connections they need to market their products — from a coffee machine made out of a pressure cooker to a non-stick hot plate crafted from clay.

Jane Chen: A warm embrace that saves lives
Premature babies are unable to stay warm. While these babies are kept in incubators in Western hospitals, far too many babies in rural and poor areas die without a chance. On a trip to India, TED Fellow Jane Chen found herself deeply upset by this phenomenon — and determined to create a solution. In this talk from TEDIndia 2009, Chen shares Embrace, a low-cost portable incubator that looks like a tiny sleeping bag … and that could save a million lives.

Bunker Roy: Learning from a barefoot movement
Bunker Roy has founded a very unusual college Rajasthan, India: Barefoot College, a university for the poor. Roy’s school takes rural men and women — many of them illiterate — and teaches them to become solar engineers, artisans, dentists and doctors. From there, they bring their knowledge back to their villages.

Nirmalya Kumar: India’s invisible innovation
India has become a hub for software development — and yet this innovation is rendered invisible because so many believe that innovation doesn’t happen in the country. At TEDxLondonBusinessSchool, Nirmalya Kumar seeks to peel back these erroneous beliefs and show what is happening underneath.

Marc Koska: 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
In underfunded clinics in India — as well as in other parts of the world — syringes are routinely reused. This practice kills 1.3 million people each year. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2009, Marc Koska introduces a promising solution: low-cost syringes that can only be used once.

Nandan Nilekani’s ideas for India’s future
Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani is often credited with making India a leader in IT services. In this talk from TED2009, he outlines what has helped India develop quickly in recent years — for example, a willingness to see people as a resource rather than a burden — and what needs to happen for economic growth to continue.

Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting
The Golden Desert receives the least rainfall in all of India and, yet, centuries ago the local people devised an ingenious solution for harvesting water. In this talk from TED2009, Anupam shares how these feats of engineering are still used today — and may even be superior to our modern methods.