When you open the app, you see several types of tasks — shopping, cleaning and, yes, donations.
Unpaid interns who complete those types of tasks displace regular workers.
Indeed, some data suggest that, in certain environments and on certain types of tasks, we can read equally well in any format.
But Mr. Pradhan agreed that the need for proximity to the final user of the technology does place limits on what types of tasks can be outsourced.
Many of these types of tasks were previously handled by civilians at other agencies, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The basic software requirements and video-processing needs for those types of tasks usually need fewer megahertz than graphics-oriented programs.
"If you look at the types of tasks that have been offshored in the past twenty years, you see that they tend to be relatively routine," Brynjolfsson and McAfee write.
Although few firm numbers are available, people in the profession say the number of assistance dogs in use in this country has continually grown, as experts have been able to train dogs for more types of tasks.
"Despite decades of automation, there are relatively few types of tasks that have been automated," said Emanuel Todorov, a cognitive scientist at Washington.
Some companies, academic organizations and research groups have shown that vastly more efficient practices are possible, although it is difficult to compare different types of tasks.
The data center can process V types of tasks.
