Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• Today there is a renewed concern that technological advancement may displace much of the manufacturing (and other) work force

• In 1983 the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research forecast the existence of 50,000 to 100,000 industrial robots in the United States by 1990, resulting in a net loss of some 100,000 jobs

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• Our current industrial policy creates jobs that are “lower-skilled and routine, eventually to be replaced by robots and computers.

• Rice University computer science professor Moshe Vardi says that in 25 years "driving by people will look quaint; it will look like a horse and buggy. So there go many of the approximately 4 million driving jobs out there

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• Smarter computers mean that any mid-paying job that involves a routine: data entry, number crunching, operations, and so on, will be replaced as well, which will remove a big piece of the approximately 7 million business and financial operations jobs that exist in the United States

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• Some think 50 percent unemployment is optimistic. Software entrepreneur Martin Ford predicts something closer to 75 percent unemployment by the end of the century

• Our new industries simply aren't labor-intensive. And those lower end jobs are low paying, and may also end up being replaced as robots get better at specialized tasks

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• A 10 percent unemployment rate is a mere fifth of what some experts predict we'll see in the future

• Not far fetched science fiction-level technology

• Specialized algorithms that can currently land jet airplanes, trade autonomously on Wall Street, or beat nearly any human being at a game of chess

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• The mechanization of agriculture. In the late 1800s

• About three quarters of workers in the U.S. were employed in agriculture. Today, the number is around 2-3%.

• Advancing technology irreversibly eliminated millions of jobs.

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• As labor-saving technologies improve, some workers lose their jobs in the short run.

• Production also becomes more efficient. That leads to lower prices for the goods and services produced

• leaves consumers with more money to spend on other things.

Are Robots Taking Our Jobs

• That seems to be exactly what happened with agriculture

• Prices fell as efficiency increased, and then consumers went out and spent their extra money elsewhere