The theme of advanced machinery ending mankind’s prosperity is prominent in science fiction, and is symbolized by evil, artificial intelligence such as HAL 9000, from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Skynet, from the Terminator series.

In reality, machines taking jobs from human laborers has been a prominent occurrence in recent years, causing many in the manufacturing sector to lose their jobs. 

However, an N.C. State professor is trying to dispel the idea that technology is bad for the economy and job growth.

Mike Walden, the William Neal Reynolds Professor and North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist, recently explored the effects of technology outsourcing jobs. 

Walden found that in the short term, mechanization will cause a decrease in available jobs, but thereafter the market will produce more jobs for people to take.

History is filled with numerous occasions in which new technologies have caused a decrease in the necessity for human labor, or eliminated the need for human labor outright. 

From the Neolithic Revolution, when humans shifted from hunting and gathering to agriculture, to the widespread use of factories to produce goods, technology has always made it easier for a smaller amount of people to do more with their time.

This has led to an increase in total production of goods, and a greater net wealth for consumers and producers. 

The prosperity people all around the world today enjoy is due in great part to the role of technology bearing a greater burden of human labor.

However, as useful as new methods of production have become, humankind has not always welcomed the spread of new technologies with open arms for fear these innovations may threaten their job security. 

The negative effects of new methods production are particularly debilitating when they eliminate the need for a human laborer.

In recent times, the fear that a robot may one day take your job has become greater than ever. 

Surprisingly, skilled labor is often at just as much of a risk for technological outsourcing as the more mundane tasks.

Andrew McAfee, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and co-author of the book Rage Against the Machine, said at a conference that workers in fields such as accounting, law, and auto-work could end up jobless at the hands of new genuinely intelligent machines such as IBM’s Watson.

However, Walden is not as worried as many that the effects of technology will take away all opportunities for human labor. He, like many other economists, supports the theory that while much work will be replaced by machines, labor will more or less shift to different areas. 

Regarding whether machines will destroy the need for human labor or not, Walden said, “I think new industries and new jobs will be generated, as in the past.” 

In an article concerning this matter Walden wrote, “The productivity, income and wealth created by machines and technology generated resources and spending in new endeavors, and these endeavors, in turn, created new jobs.”

According to Walden, the birth of new jobs in the place of ones lost to technology has been the trend throughout history, and there is no indication that it will end anytime soon.