#AI: "How to remove the roadblocks that make it harder for people to make their *own* adjustments to the new era of automation."

"Everyone [Everyone? Really? -Ed] is starting to become concerned that the machines are about to take away all of our jobs—at least, all of the jobs that we do now. ...
    "A lot of this is overhyped and exaggerated, of course. ... in most cases machines will end up augmenting human workers instead of replacing them. ... Yet the example of the Industrial Revolution is not quite that reassuring.
    "That raises the question: Can we do better this time? ... I look at this question from the perspective of a skeptical free-marketer who doubts there’s much government can do to predict what the future will look like or to help people adjust to it. ...
    "Perhaps the [best] focus for government policy would be on figuring out how to remove the roadblocks that make it harder for people to make their own adjustments to the new era of automation. In that spirit, I will propose five broad policy ideas for the new era of automation, beginning in this installment with the first and probably most urgent: education reform.
    "In an era when old skills are being rendered obsolete and new skills will be required, education is the most important way for everyone to adapt to the new era.
    "But just throwing more money at the problem has been a disaster. ... To help people adapt to the new era, we desperately need to reduce the expense of education, but more important, we need to change how we approach it. ...
    "Here are some specific policy proposals to help us get there.

1. More choice and competition in primary and secondary schools. ...
2. More focus on blue-collar skills and apprenticeships. ...
3. Apprenticeships for white-collar jobs. ...
4. Rein in the cost of higher education. ...
5. Make existing higher education obsolete. ...

    "The ideas I have suggested above are the kinds of things we would do if we took that crisis seriously and were really concerned about solving the problem—instead of being concerned about appeasing the entrenched constituencies the current system serves."

~ Robert Tracinski, from his post 'Lighting Fires and Filling Buckets: Policy Ideas for the Age of Automation'