I would more readily label myself, if forced, as a technology optimist rather than pessimist. So I very much like this chart from the new AI Index report:

Now I am not sure what explains the upturn. My guess is the “AI will take all the jobs” story is a natural first impulse for a society raised on sci-fi showing supercapable computers and robots. (Probably also “AI like Skynet will destroy humanity.) But many economists and technologists have since pushed back on that idea, and maybe their arguments are taking root. (And I have done a considerable bit of pushback myself.)

Along those lines, a new Pew report “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humans” compiles expert opinion on a number of different aspects of AI. In the spirit of keeping things positive, here are a couple of upbeat takes on how AI will affects jobs and workers.

Brad Templeton, chair for computing at Singularity University, said, “While obviously there will be good and bad, the broad history of automation technologies is positive, even when it comes to jobs. There is more employment today than ever in history.”

Thomas H. Davenport, distinguished professor of information technology and management at Babson College and fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, responded, “So far, most implementations of AI have resulted in some form of augmentation, not automation. Surveys of managers suggest that relatively few have automation-based job loss as the goal of their AI initiatives. So while I am sure there will be some marginal job loss, I expect that AI will free up workers to be more creative and to do more unstructured work.”

Bob Metcalfe, Internet Hall of Fame member, co-inventor of Ethernet, founder of 3Com and now professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at Austin, said, “Pessimists are often right, but they never get anything done. All technologies come with problems, sure, but … generally, they get solved. The hardest problem I see is the evolution of work. Hard to figure out. Forty percent of us used to know how to milk cows, but now less than 1% do. We all used to tell elevator operators which floor we wanted, and now we press buttons. Most of us now drive cars and trucks and trains, but that’s on the verge of being over. AIs are most likely not going to kill jobs. They will handle parts of jobs, enhancing the productivity of their humans.”

One caveat here: There were also experts who were pretty positive about the first half of this century but warned about significant disruption beyond that.