The speech by David Autor was informative
David Autor, in his presentation, addresses a question that is as a result of technological advancements. Will automation take away our jobs? He begins by giving examples of how automated teller machines (ATM’s), tractors, computers, assembly lines were invented to replace the workforce. With these inventions in place, the number of people employed in the labour market keeps increasing as opposed to reducing due to automation. The big question is why there are so many jobs, yet machines are supposed to reduce the work we do as human beings. He narrows down to two principles O-ring and the never get enough policy. The introduction of machines solves a single subset of work that we do while human beings are left wondering about other vital areas that are a more significant part of the small subset. The O-ring principle looks at a whole project as a series of interlocking steps that have links. If any of the links fail, the entire project fails. In most of the work that we do, we are the O-ring, an introduction of an ATM improves how we do our daily tasks. They never get enough principle forces human beings to be innovative and creative in coming up with products and services that never existed before. People want to work more and harvest from the technology industry. This leads to the creation of more job opportunities. Automation helps us create more wealth by doing a lot of work in less time. New jobs are created each day, but the people to work in the jobs created do not have the skills designed for the latest posts. Only those with the skills get the jobs and good pay while the low skill jobs are continually being replaced by automation. Automation will only replace a subset of what human beings do, and human beings will invent new technologies to help them in different areas in life hence creating more job opportunities.
The speech by David Autor was informative as opposed to being persuasive. David is not trying to sell anything or convince the audience to subscribe to a particular school of thought. He is enlightening the audience about the impact of automation on the labour market. The perception of many people is that automation will reduce the number of people being employed. Still, he elaborates the use of technology in automation and what human beings are doing to create new employment opportunities.
To gain audience attention, David is continually using gestures and tonal variation. He is not glued to one position as he makes his speech. He is moving from one point to another to ensure that the audience is not bored. His tone is not as dull as he makes the presentation. He varies his tone and creating the audience alert throughout the performance. David is continually asking the audience questions that require them to think and draw up conclusions in the presentation.
His technique of speech delivery is ideally suited to ensure that he communicates to the audience effectively. I am convinced that automation will not take away our jobs, but it will create room for human beings to be innovative and hence creating more job opportunities. David uses two theories to explain and support his arguments.
The O-Ring and never get enough principles have been thoroughly explained to fit the discussion, and the examples are given provide the context. The models on how tractors, computers and ATM’s were introduced in the different fields and their impact in the areas helps the audience understand their role better. He goes ahead and explains their importance and how they have not and will not impact different subsets of the tasks in the fields mentioned.
David uses a need plan speech organization pattern in his presentation. His approach shows us the importance of technology innovations, their role, what technology cannot do, and what human beings are doing about it.
David ends his speech by admitting that he knows nothing about the next 100 years, but with what he sees today, human beings will continue creating innovations that will be of use in future. He is still convinced that machines will not take away our jobs and that we will always have solutions and job opportunities to create.