Returning to this dormant thread, the concern was that the latest in a series of technological revolutions might not follow the general pattern, which is that each eats up a certain category of jobs, by automating them, but more are created than are lost, making for a net gain – and a lucrative one at that. Well, the early returns are in, as NewScientist (14 April 2018) reports:
People’s fears have been stoked by headlines warning of the robot takeover. A 2013 study by the University of Oxford, for example, suggested robots are set to replace as much as 47 per cent of the US workforce and 35 per cent of the UK’s.
But far from this apocalyptic scenario, automation resulted in an overall increase in jobs of between 1.5 and 1.8 per cent in Germany between 2011 and 2016. While robots claimed 5 per cent of jobs, more new ones were created. What’s more, most of these tended to pay better than those that had been lost.
Like I said, early returns. As AI continues to improve, as sager heads predict, perhaps the trend will fade and we will soon be praising our robot overlords.
But, so far, not so much.
