CodeX Fellow Jerry Kaplan is on a book tour in New York, for “Humans Need Not Apply,” published Tuesday by Yale University Press. The tour included a 5.16 minute interview with BloombergBusiness yesterday.

He acknowledged that online retail is growing steadily, but said he doesn’t expect it to supersede bricks and mortar stores. “I think [the market] will probably stabilize at 25 percent online retail—versus store front retail. There is still a lot of value, going down to that store, feeling that Gucci bag.

“The future is very bright—if you can afford it,” he predicted.  “And the problem is most people are not going to be able to afford it. What we are seeing is an acceleration in automation, driven primarily by advances in artificial intelligence,” he said. “Over the next decade or two we are going to see lots  of areas of employment
be decimated.”

Kaplan was also on The Street, interviewed by Gregg Greenberg.

And as we mentioned on July 28, Kaplan’s essay, “Can We Create an Ethical Robot?” ran in the Wall Street Journal last Friday (subscription required). It’s adapted from the new book, which yes, is available on Amazon.

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist for Bloomberg BNA Big Law Business. @MonicaBay. Email: mbay@stanford.edu.