In The Washington Post yesterday:

Modern technological advances have sparked many concerns that supercomputers, robots and other sophisticated machinery will soon erase the need for skilled workers, especially in industries like manufacturing and construction, perhaps driving the nation’s unemployment rate even higher in the years ahead.

 

Similarly, Americans’ increasing dependence on technology, ranging from constant computer use to around-the-clock interaction with mobile phones, has prompted many observers and academics to question whether the line separating people and technology is blurring in an all too dangerous manner.

 

On Monday, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt offered words to mollify those concerns [after the jump].

 

“Over the next five or 10 years, computers and humans will be distinguishable. We’re not merging, trust me,” he said during a speech in Washington. “Humans will get very, very good at what we do, like fun, innovation, entertainment, all the things we know and love about ourselves. Computers will get extraordinarily good at the things they’re very good at, which is the ability to solve problems and infinite memory.”

 

During a Q&A session afterward, Schmidt urged business owners to harness technology to help them accurately predict the future outlook for their companies. He explained that, during the early years at Google, an engineer had discovered through complex computer analysis that the company was low-balling its quarterly revenue gains. Schmidt said he kept the information to himself, quietly spending additional funds and making what turned out to be successful investments for Google.

 

“I learned something about business that day,” he said. “You should be able to predict your business down just a few dollars just using statistical information and analysis, because it can now be done rather easily.”

Read the full story here.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)