Wilbur Ross Quotes

The introduction of machinery is turning into idleness thousands, faster than new industries are founded

There is a fear of innovation because people are afraid of job loss.

Displacement by technology has probably occurred since the invention of the shovel.

If our institutions can’t build consensus and respond to the demand of Americans for jobs today, how will we ever do it in a time when artificial intelligence and robotics kick in and five times that number of jobs disappear twice as fast?

My biggest worry is that no one seems to notice that we are not going to stop the technical progress that is going to continue to displace people through automation.

What people are now realizing is that this formula that technology destroys jobs and creates jobs, even if it's basically true, it's too simplistic.

Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'

Modern ingenuity has made it possible for a child to run some of the machines and the child will get the job while the men must tramp.

Only in a minority of cases will workmen be able to recognize the technological change responsible for their dismissal. For this it would be necessary that machines be introduced in an existent plant under the eyes of the workmen and that dismissal be effected immediately after.

Job displacement is so huge, I'm tempted to not talk about anything other than that.

I don't think that globalisation is anywhere near the threat that robots are.

The bottom line is that while automation is eliminating many jobs in the economy that were once done by people, there is no sign that the introduction of technologies in recent years is creating an equal number of well-paying jobs to compensate for those losses.

Technological change is essential, but to a natural historian it often feels cold and distancing.

What we can say with confidence is that the technological revolution is worsening inequality, due mostly to mechanisms that limit free markets. It is also bringing about disruptive change that is intensifying insecurity and may indeed lead to large-scale labor displacement.

One thing I want to do is get Silicon Valley to think harder about those who have been left behind by the technology revolution. It has created huge winners for those who are able to understand it and are adept at it. But it has also displaced a tremendous number of jobs.

It's hard to think that Mark Zuckerberg is actually impoverishing anyone by getting rich with Facebook. But driverless cars are another matter entirely.

We need to wake up to the fact that it is not immigrants who are causing economic dislocations. It is technology and an evolving economy that is pushing more and more Americans to the sidelines.

It is easy to underestimate in advance the impact of globalization and automation - I have done it myself.

With any previous transition we made with technology, it hasn't been the case that we need less people.

I don't think that all the coal miners - or even more realistically, say, the truck drivers whose jobs may be put out by self-driving cars and trucks - they're all going to go and become web designers and programmers.

Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.

The great growling engine of change - technology.

Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.

I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!

Technology, outsourcing, a growing temp staffing industry, productivity efficiencies, have all replaced the middle class.