Gresham College Lectures Work, Out of Reach - Daniel Susskind
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Mar 17, 2026 Daniel Susskind, economist and author who studies AI and the future of work, discusses why jobs can exist yet remain unreachable. He explores task encroachment by generative AI and the difference between substitution and complementarity. He explains frictional unemployment through skills, place, and identity mismatches and uses the Tantalus metaphor to show work out of reach.
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Two Types Of Technological Unemployment
- Susskind distinguishes structural technological unemployment (not enough jobs exist) from frictional technological unemployment (jobs exist but people can't take them).
- He argues the near-term problem is frictional unemployment over the next five to ten years rather than outright job scarcity.
Three Mismatches Explain Work Being Out Of Reach
- Frictional technological unemployment unfolds through three mismatches: skills, place, and identity.
- Susskind sets this taxonomy as the framework for diagnosing why available work remains out of reach for many.
Education Historically Absorbed Displaced Workers
- Historically, expanding education absorbed displaced agricultural workers into manufacturing and later into higher-skilled roles.
- Susskind traces rising graduate shares and wage premia as the mid-20th century remedy for technological displacement.
