A newly published paper quantifies the extent to which automation has contributed to income inequality in the U.S., simply by replacing workers with technology — whether self-checkout machines, call-center systems, assembly-line technology, or other devices. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT When you use self-checkout machines in supermarkets and drugstores, you are probably not—with all due respect—doing a better job of bagging your purchases than checkout clerks once did. Automation just makes bagging less expensive for large retail chains.
"If you introduce self-checkout kiosks, it’s not going to change productivity all that much," says MIT economist Daron Acemoglu. However, in terms of […]
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