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Machines are besting humans in more and more tasks; thanks to technology, fewer Americans make more stuff in less time. But today economists debate not whether machines are changing the workplace and making us more efficient - they certainly are - but whether the result is a net loss of jobs. The figures above may look dire. But compare the number of manufacturing jobs and total jobs in the chart below. Since 1990, the total non-farm workforce has grown 33 percent, more than accounting for the manufacturing jobs lost.

Australian farms generate huge volumes of agricultural data. Examples include the types of crops being grown, crop yields, livestock numbers and locations, types of fertilisers and pesticides being used, soil types, rainfall and more. This data is typically collected through the use of digital farming machinery and buildings featuring robotics and digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and devices connected to the internet ("internet of things", or IoT). But a recent review from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics highlights the patchy and fragmented nature of existing government and industry approaches to agricultural data. What that means is Australian farmers are currently not adequately protected from their farm data being collected and used without their knowledge or consent.

Algorithms decide which applications reach human managers' eyes. But they sort out people with unusual work histories or who lack college degrees