Obama Says Dems Need to Get Smarter About Tech Eric Johnson - Recode
go to original January 21, 2017

Barack Obama is taking a “quick vacation” after leaving office Friday. But before he handed over the keys to the Oval Office, he urged his fellow Democrats to pay attention to job automation.

For his last interview as president, Obama sat down Wednesday with Pod Save America, a podcast hosted by four of his former aides: Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor. He told them that he expects advancements like “driverless Uber” will be followed by job automation “in office buildings across the country.”

“We, I think, probably have to be more creative about anticipating about what’s coming down the pike,” Obama said. “Automation is relentless and it’s going to accelerate.”

“You saw just what happened to retail stores, sales this past Christmas,” he added. “Amazon and online sales is killing traditional retail, and what’s true there is going to be true throughout our economy.”

The former president said politicians on the left need to listen to the real economic fears of Trump voters and “be a little bolder” in how they try to solve those problems. He wondered if the solution might be a “job-sharing economy so that everybody has work, because it turns out that work is not just about finances, but it’s about dignity and feeling like you’ve got a place in the world.”

Here’s the full audio of the podcast interview:



Read the rest at Recode

Photo: LiberalAmerica.org

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