Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, that is an interesting question and certainly an excellent question. And I think it does appear like more and more, we are inventing smart machines, computer-based. But thus far economists would argue that there are two things - two qualities - that humans have that machines have yet to replace. One is dexterity. This simply means the ability for people to better identify and manipulate objects in space. That's the formal definition, moving things around. For example, if you look at a fast food restaurant, you still need people in there to transfer the ingredients and assemble the ingredients. Now this is obviously where machines are making big strides, and it may be down the road that more and more of those tasks can be taken over by machines. But thus far that's a benefit to having people in your workforce. The other big advantage - and I think the one that will take much longer for machines to take over - is the simple fact that humans can think. And we have an ability to interact. We have an ability to reason and react to other people. That's something that is very, very hard to program into machines, and I think it's a key reason why at least for the foreseeable future we are going to need people around to do many tasks."