Robots aren’t replacing everyone, but a quarter of U.S. jobs will be severely disrupted as artificial intelligence accelerates the automation of existing work, according to a new Brookings Institution report.
The report, published Thursday, says roughly 36 million Americans hold jobs with “high exposure” to automation — meaning at least 70 percent of their tasks could soon be performed by machines using current technology. Among those most likely to be affected are cooks, waiters and others in food services; short-haul truck drivers; and clerical office workers.
“That population is going to need to upskill, reskill or change jobs fast,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings and lead author of the report.
Muro said the timeline for the changes could be “a few years or it could be two decades.” But it’s likely that automation will happen more swiftly during the next economic downturn. Businesses are typically eager to implement cost-cutting technology as they lay off workers.
Some economic studies have found similar shifts toward automating production happened in the early part of previous recessions — and may have contributed to the “jobless recovery” that followed the 2008 financial crisis.
But with new advances in artificial intelligence, it’s not just industrial and warehouse robots that will alter the American workforce. Self-checkout kiosks and computerized hotel concierges will do their part.
Most jobs will change somewhat as machines take over routine tasks, but a majority of U.S. workers will be able to adapt to that shift without being displaced.
The changes will hit hardest in smaller cities, especially those in the heartland and Rust Belt and in states like Indiana and Kentucky, according to the report by the Washington think tank. They will also disproportionately affect the younger workers who dominate food services and other industries at highest risk for automation.
Some chain restaurants have already shifted to self-ordering machines ; a handful have experimented with robot-assisted kitchens .
Google this year is piloting the use of its digital voice assistant at hotel lobbies to instantly interpret conversations across a few dozen languages. Autonomous vehicles could replace short-haul delivery drivers. Walmart WMT, -0.71% and other retailers are preparing to open cashier-less stores powered by in-store sensors or cameras with facial recognition technology.
“Restaurants will be able to get along with significantly reduced workforces,” Muro said. “In the hotel industry, instead of five people manning a desk to greet people, there’s one and people basically serve themselves.”
Many economists find that automation has an overall positive effect on the labor market, said Matias Cortes, an assistant professor at York University in Toronto who was not involved with the Brookings report. It can create economic growth, reduce prices and increase demand while also creating new jobs that make up for those that disappear.
But Cortes said there’s no doubt there are “clear winners and losers.” In the recent past, those hardest hit were men with low levels of education who dominated manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs, and women with intermediate levels of education who dominated clerical and administrative positions.
In the future, the class of workers affected by automation could grow as machines become more intelligent. The Brookings report analyzed each occupation’s automation potential based on research by the McKinsey management consulting firm. Those jobs that remain largely unscathed will be those requiring not just advanced education, but also interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence.
“These high-paying jobs require a lot of creativity and problem-solving,” Cortes said. “That’s going to be difficult for new technologies to replace.”
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This must be why we need to import tens of millions more, uneducated, low IQ , foreigners for some reason, right?
“Those jobs that remain largely unscathed will be those requiring not just advanced education, but also interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence.”
Serious question. Seriously.
What kind of job requires; —> 1) advanced education, 2) interpersonal skills and 3) emotional intelligence (whatever the fuck that is)??
Nurses, I suspect.
High level managers oft fall into that category.
Nurses are amongst the dead ducks. Machines will do a lot of what they do, in time.
counselors,managers,gigolos,moms(but not dads),grandmas,admin
You left out drug dealers and whores. Oh and it is also my job to down vote starfcker (TM).
Con artists.
I understand the angst, but aren’t we going to need skilled workers to make, service, program, and manage all this new robotic technology?
Since automation is inevitable and we can’t do anything about it anyway, let’s never talk about it again. Instead let’s focus our efforts on making sure we keep filthy foreigners out of our country
Better get that UBI ready to roll…. clean up in aisle 6 Herb.
What’s cute is the kind of people that work at places like Brookings, and do reports like this never seem to think they are replaceable.
Apparently AI is on track to replace all kinds of “high-skill” jobs. Supposedly radiology, surgery, primary care medicine, psychology, paralegal and actual attorney work are also are all replaceable.
What’s also cute is they seem to think there are jobs that will replace millions of service jobs – there aren’t. Or that if by some miracle there were replacement jobs that people working in service jobs can somehow be trained to do them. Neither is likely that’s why so many tech CEOs et. have been discussing a universal basic income.
And most astounding is that these people are paid to think because presumably that’s what makes the creative class so valuable and they legitimately think delivery drivers are easily replaced. Well someone or something must move the package – that means a robot of some sort – now maybe I’m racist but I can think of a whole lot of zip codes and whole cities where that robot won’t be coming back at the end of shift and neither will the freight he was supposed to move.
No need to replace propaganda operations like Brookings. Just shut them down
i hates to tell you this but amazon has it so organized that from the customer’s computer to the time it’s shipped,it is only touched for a few seconds by a human–
they are also working on drones so there goes your deliveryman in many cases–
Well said,that robot delivery thingy,will be our new goalie when the team is short,and when the opposition says he’s not human,we will argue gender fluidity,and the robot is non binary,and get out with your identity oppression.PS,I have no idea what gender fluidity,non binary,identity oppression means .Cheers Crippsy
” …. but a quarter of U.S. jobs will be severely disrupted as artificial intelligence …”
Another 25% of jobs will be taken by the Beaner Class (farm work, lawn mowing)
Another 25% of jobs will be taken by the Dothead Class (IT, call centers)
Another 25% of jobs will be taken by the Kneegroid Class (government jobs)
.
By my estimation, in 20 years or less there will be no jobs for the White Class.
But Stucky, if white folks don’t work who is gonna pay taxes?? Oh, that’s right the govt. can just keep creating money out of thin air to pay the “workers”. John
Stuck – this change will offer enormous opportunity for the smart, educated (not necessarily attained formally), the prepared, the hard-working. There are more and more sheeple every day, and “wolves” will eventually feast on them.
I find it a much better experience to use the ATM than to try and communicate with some bank teller moron.
Also we (us software developers) have worked on ‘normalizing data’. By this means we can exchange data between different software platforms. Programatically we ‘know’ which data field is the ‘last name’ / ‘first name’ / etc. This may not seem like much – however this is how you can walk in and get a car loan in a matter of minutes, rather than days, makes for a very competitive lending enviornment . Data from credit bureaus, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies can be gathered, rated, approve you for a loan, at the lowest rate they can find.
This type of automation has eliminated a lot of grunt jobs – people making phone calls, faxes, etc.
The problem is what do we do with these cube-monkeys?
Why are there so many loan officers still?
Well, I guess that means more people shitting in the street in San Francisco.
Damn Stucky , anybody with any intelligence knows it’s truck driving. I worry about you sometimes.
Advance education = high school
Good people skills = just smile and get the hell out as soon as you can
Emotional Intelligence = not having a nervous breakdown after you have been stuck in traffic for hours at a time.
Dumb shits are currently working to replace truck drivers. I wanna live long enough to be rear ended by a clone truck.
And when it happens they’ll still say the unemployment rate is 3.8%
I read this word the other day, does anyone know what it is?
The word is “sabot”
Wooden shoes. You can throw them into machinery.
Per Miriam-Webster, Sabot also means: “A thrust-transmitting carrier that positions a missile in a gun barrel or launching tube and that prevents the escape of gas ahead of the missile.”
Per Wikipedia: “A structural device used in firearm or cannon ammunition to keep a sub-caliber flight projectile, such as a relatively small bullet or arrow-type projectile, in the center of the barrel when fired, if the bullet has a significantly smaller diameter than the bore diameter of the weapon used.”
Oh, yeah.
Well, I was going for the definition Anonymous gave.
now I feel foolish.
Actually a sabot is a shoe made by the dutch. Hence the term sabotage. Indeed, the sabot was introduced into machinery to damage it. Anon is correct. Miriam – Webster not withstanding. Their def infers the term sabotage. Obviously, no one can shove a sabot, a dutch shoe, into the barrel of any projectile weapon, unless it is a large bore cannon.
Butlerian Jihad
AI is the enemy! So what will everyone do to make a living? We were supposed to have all these hi-tech jobs. Everything hi-tech is made in Asia. By slaves. I saw an interview with some Chinese AI genius when they asked him about what jobs people would do he shrugged and said they would adapt. WTF!
I smell bullshit with DNA Phenotyping just as much with “30 million” job killing AI.
There are some good insights to AI bullshit in this paper.
Read the paper and search the term.
http://mileswmathis.com/musk.pdf
I would think high-end restaurants would keep waiters. Busboys will at least be needed to clear tables unless they switch all plates, bowels, cups to stainless steel or plastic. A robot cleaning off a table with glass or ceramic-wear won’t work so well.
My current job is to post to TBP. I doubt I’ll be replaced!