Modern technological advances have sparked many concerns that supercomputers, robots and other sophisticated machinery will soon erase the need for skilled workers, especially in industries like manufacturing and construction, perhaps driving the nation’s unemployment rate even higher in the years ahead.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (left) responds to questions at an event for the Economic Club of Washington, DC on Monday. (The Economic Club of Washington, DC/Paul Morse) Similarly, Americans’ increasing dependence on technology, ranging from constant computer use to around-the-clock interaction with mobile phones, has prompted many observers and academics to question whether the line separating people and technology is blurring in an all too dangerous manner.

On Monday, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt offered words to mollify those concerns.

“Over the next five or 10 years, computers and humans will be distinguishable. We’re not merging, trust me,” he said during a speech in Washington. “Humans will get very, very good at what we do, like fun, innovation, entertainment, all the things we know and love about ourselves. Computers will get extraordinarily good at the things they’re very good at, which is the ability to solve problems and infinite memory.”

During a Q&A session afterward, Schmidt urged business owners to harness technology to help them accurately predict the future outlook for their companies. He explained that, during the early years at Google, an engineer had discovered through complex computer analysis that the company was low-balling its quarterly revenue gains. Schmidt said he kept the information to himself, quietly spending additional funds and making what turned out to be successful investments for Google.

“I learned something about business that day,” he said. “You should be able to predict your business down just a few dollars just using statistical information and analysis, because it can now be done rather easily.”

Schmidt, who previously served as chief executive of Novell, shared several other subtle tips for business owners, at one point emphasizing the benefits of working with one or several partners rather than entering into ventures alone and later recommended that growing companies make small acquisitions that can address single, specific concerns or problems.

Schmidt also took the opportunity to again blast proposed legislation aimed at curbing online piracy, arguing that the measures currently under consideration by the House and Senate would fundamentally change the structure of the Internet. He said that a law requiring Internet companies and search engines to remove links to Web sites connected to counterfeit goods would lead to increased online censorship overseas and in the United States.

“By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet,” he said. “By doing so it’s a form of censorship.”

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