The industrialized world has dealt with automation and labor-saving devices for centuries. Industrialization itself is the product of early labor-saving devices — the steam engine and machine tools such as the milling machine. Machines have become more sophisticated since then, but automation has largely supplanted the crudest forms of labor — pure muscle — and posed a limited threat to "creative" workers or intellectuals. That is about to change.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been recognized as one of the most important developments of the postindustrial era, a source of extraordinary opportunities for business and individuals. In the most rhapsodic versions, AI will enable a brave new world in which individuals will only have to figure out how best to spend their leisure time.
Today, most discussion of AI focuses on potential — the gap between the promise and the reality — and often overlooks the extraordinary progress that has been made and how quickly the future will arrive. The time to start thinking about the implications — good and bad — is now.