Finance and economics | Economics focus
Automatic reaction
IT spending has hollowed out labour markets, to the detriment of middle-income workers
AN ODDLY entrancing YouTube video of a robot folding a pile of freshly laundered towels has been viewed over half a million times. Although it does this quotidian task better than any other robot, it is still much less adept than the average person. The difficulty of programming a towel-folding robot which can outdo humans may help to explain why the past couple of decades have been so unkind to middle-class workers in the rich world.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline "Automatic reaction"
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