Rob Atkinson, who has advised George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden on how to promote the high tech industry, just wrote in the Asia Times: 

“The Chinese Communist Party has made manufacturing robot adoption a top priority, backing it up with generous subsidies. To the extent US policymakers talk about robots, it is usually to criticize them for taking jobs.”
In my conversation with him, Atkinson advocated an aggressive industrial policy to boost productivity and economic growth even if it displaces workers with, yes, robots.  We tussle on that question as well as with the perspectives of impactful economists like Dani Rodrik of Harvard, Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Brad DeLong of Berkeley—now is a great time to revisit their episodes on this podcast.
This conversation is part of our ongoing investigation of ways to restore the vitality of our middle class.