The impact of innovation, by its nature, is unpredictable. But the pattern by which new technologies and high-tech businesses create jobs across the economy is well established. Take the Internet and Google.
The search giant employs thousands of people — programmers, mathematicians, statisticians, marketing and sales people, administrators and managers. But its success ripples to create other jobs as well: service workers and suppliers of everything from computers to food. Real estate brokers and car dealers have benefited from Google's wealth. More broadly, the spread of Internet technology has meant that most companies have their own websites. The companies hire software programmers, computer technicians, graphics designers and online advertising salespeople. And the job-creating ripples continue.
Smarter computing technology, experts say, ought to make the most skilled workers — in science, the arts and business — even more productive and prosperous by freeing them from routine tasks. Their prosperity translates to spending that creates jobs in stores, schools, gyms, construction and elsewhere.
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Artificial intelligence, experts say, should also generate new jobs even as it displaces others. The smart machines of the future will need programming, servicing and upgrading — work done, perhaps, by a new class of digital technicians. The intelligent machines, experts add, will be specialists in a field, like the medical assistant project at Microsoft. They must be tailored with specialized software, perhaps igniting a new industry for artificial intelligence applications. Of course, no one really knows just what artificial intelligence will mean for jobs and the economy, but the technology is marching ahead.