THE GREAT RESET

Technological advancements have ousted low-skill laborers and prompted increases in education and training for workers throughout history. Economists and researchers warn, however, that the newest wave of automation may be different.

Luddites have historically been associated with being behind the times and quick to alarm. For once, though, the Luddites may have been right.

Our daily lives have been greatly improved by the ideas of inventors. These men and women were not necessarily greeted with appreciation in their own times, though.

Almost all the jobs disappearing are the mid-skill, mid-pay jobs — jobs with salaries ranging from $37,000 to $68,000 — that form the backbone of the middle class in developed countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

Martin Ford wrote a book called"The Lights in the Tunnel," which is about what would happen to the economy if machines keep replacing human workers.

For decades, science fiction warned of a future when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines; an Associated Press analysis finds that the future has arrived.

For centuries, technology has upended industries. But it has also created millions of jobs, though not usually for the people who lost them.

For most of the past four years, Obama has emphasized that he inherited the bad times from President George W. Bush. But in his second-term, it will be harder to blame his predecessor.