Robots as employees? Tech world weighs in

ARE robots coming for your job?

Although technology has long affected the labor force, recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are heightening concerns about automation replacing a growing number of occupations, including highly skilled or “knowledge-based” jobs.

J ust a f ew examples: self- driving technology may eliminate the need for taxi, Uber and truck drivers, algorithms are playing a growing role i n j ournalism, robots are informing consumers as mall greeters, and medicine i s adapting robotic surgery and artificial intelligence to detect cancer and heart conditions.

Of 700 occupations in the United States, 47 percent are at “high risk” from automation, an Oxford University study concluded in 2013.

A McKinsey study released this year offered a similar view, saying “about half” of activities in the world’s workforce “could potentially be automated “Artificial i ntelligence

DIRE CONSEQUENCES by a d a p t i n g c u r r e nt l y is moving a lot faster than demonstrated technologies.” anyone had expected,” said

Still, McKinsey researchers Wadhwa, who is co- author offered a caveat, saying that only of a forthcoming book on the around five percent of jobs can topic. “Alexa (Amazon’s home be “fully automated.” hub) and Google Home are

Another report, by PwC this getting amazingly intelligent month, concluded that around a very fast. Microsoft and Google third of jobs in the United States, have demonstrated that AI Germany and Britain could be can understand human speech eliminated by automation by better than humans can.” the early 2030s, with the losses Wadhwa calls the driverless concentrated in transportation car a “metaphor” for the future and storage, manufacturing, and of labor and a sign of a major wholesale andshift.retailtrade.

But experts warn that such Warnings of dire social studies may fail to grasp the consequences from automation full extent of the risks to the have also come from the likes of working population. the physicist Stephen Hawking

“T h e s t u d i e s a r e and tech entrepreneur Elon underestimating the impact Musk, among others. of technology — some 80 Hebrew University of to 90 percent of jobs will be Jerusalem historian Yuval eliminated in the next 10 to 15 Harari writes in his 2017 book, years,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a “Homo Deus: A Brief History of tech entrepreneur and faculty Tomorrow” that technology will member at Carnegie Mellon lead to “superfluous people” University in Silicon Valley. as “intelligent non- conscious algorithms” improve.

“As algorithms push humans out of the job market,” he writes, “wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all- powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality.”

Harari points t o t he Oxford study, estimating a high probability of job loss to automation — cashiers ( 97 percent), paralegals ( 94 percent), bakers (89 percent) and bartenders (77 percent), for example. Others disagree. Boston University economist and researcher James Bessen dismisses alarmist predictions, contending that advances in technology generally lead to more jobs, even if the nature of work changes.

His research found that the proliferation of ATM machines did not decrease bank tellers’ employment in recent decades, and that automation of textile mills in the 19th century led to an increase in weaving jobs because it created more demand.

“Robots can replace humans in certain tasks but don’t entirely replace humans,” he said.

But he acknowledged that automation “is destroying a lot of low-skill, low wage jobs, and the new jobs being created need higher skills.”

Former president Barack Obama’s council of economic advisors also warned last year that most jobs paying less than $20 an hour “would come under pressure from automation.” Although the net impact of

TAX THE ROBOT robots remains unclear, tech leaders and others are already debating how to deal with the potential job displacement.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said last month that he supports a “robot tax,” an idea floated in Europe, including by a socialist presidential candidate in France.

But Bessen, a former fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center, said taxing robots could be counterproductive.

“You don’t want to be taxing the machines because they enable people to earn higher wages,” he said. “If you tax machines, you will slow the beneficial side of the process.”

Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation f or t echnical i nnovation and founder of the Silicon Valley think- tank Singularity University, is among those calling for a “universal basic income” to compensate people for job losses.

Offering income guarantees “will be one of many tools empowering self-actualization at scale,” he said in a blog post, arguing that automation will allow people “to follow their passions, be more creative.”

But Wadhwa says t he problems run deeper and will

require more creative solutions.

“A basic i ncome won’t solve the social problems of joblessness because people’s identity revolves around our jobs,” he said.

“Even if we have enough food and energy, we have to deal with the social disruption that’s coming. We need a much broader discussion.”

Bessen says reversing the trends of the past decades, where high- skilled jobs gain at the expense of others, pose a “big challenge.”

“It’s entirely possible we can meet the challenge,” he said. “But the evidence in the past 20 years is that things are moving i n the wrong direction.”