Are there any statistics comparing job loss in the industrial and software revolutions up to this point. The industrial revolution likewise replaced manual labor with automation, and the software revolution Sam talks about seems like a more effective extension of that. What trends happened last time jobs were replaced by automation?
I don't think that's an easy task, at least at this point. Depending on when you want to start the clock, the 'software revolution' is a couple of decades old. It would be hard to separate what job losses occurred from software vs from outsourcing, the recessions, etc. Give it some time, when it's clear that the jobs aren't coming back, and then we'll have a good idea the causes and size of it.
