Another perspective on automation: Do more with "something different"

An interesting perspective on the employment questions raised by automation surfaced at a Senate hearing this morning thanks to retired Col. Michael Cartney, who leads the Lake Area Technical Institute in South Dakota:

"So there's been concerns that technology's going to allow us to do more with less. So my response is always: you never do more with less, you do more with something different. And that's what technology's doing. But it's not reducing the number of workers we need, it's changing the types of workers that we need."

Why it piques our interest: We hear all the time that automation isn't going to rob Americans of their jobs, just change them. But Cartney isn't some think-tank type — he's involved in training Americans for new jobs.