Digital Revolution

Bounty and Spread

Digital Revolution 

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Bounty and spread

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. WW Norton & Company.

Digital Revolution 

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Bounty is the reward...

• The digital revolution paths the way to (unlimited) economic growth (second half of the chessboard),
• building blocks enable manifold innovation by recombination,
• digitization makes information (and education) accessible for the world,
• automation and AI allows us to focus less on repetitive and more on creative tasks.

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. WW Norton & Company.

Digital Revolution 

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• While the economy grows, average income stagnates,
• "winner-takes it all economies" reward the only "super-stars",
• skewed access to technology facilitates economic disadvantages,
• radical societal change fuels radical political ideologies.

... spread is the divide

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. WW Norton & Company.

Digital Revolution 

Encourage the bounty

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• Do we need to remeasure productivity, growth, and work in the future?
• Should pupils learn more Python and less Platon?
• Could Austria become a hub for the (sustainable) peer economy?
• Should we restart local startups or invite the world's talents (or both)?

Digital Revolution 

Diminish the spread

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• Can we estimate job substitution in the next 10, 20, 30 years from now?
• What are the things machines can't do (and maybe never will)?
• Do we need a guaranteed universal income or negative income taxes?
• Shall we tax the rich or the machines, or do it the "Pigovian way"?