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, […]
Economists 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 […]
TED Curator Chris Anderson opened this morning’s first session, Progress Enigma, with a provocative question: What is the future of work? He asked the audience: According to your worldview, is the growth of innovation accelerating? Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the audience answered yes. But is the answer so simple? Economist Robert J. Gordon […]
Erik Brynjolfsson says growth is not dead. To make his case in session 1 of TED2013, he points out two moments in the past — one that took place 120 years ago and the other that took place about 15 years ago. One hundred and twenty years ago, the Second Industrial Revolution began. But while the tools […]
As we assembled TED2013’s lineup of speakers from around the world, talked with the TED brain trust, and listened to online conversations, one theme emerged: What is the future of work? Technology and new business practices are, in many ways, putting an end to the classic “good job,” the kind that millions of people once […]