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to the effects of automation in the
past, which have followed a pattern
of initial disruptions followed by a period of adjustment that culminated in
long-term gains.
A classic example is the Industrial
Revolution, the massively disruptive transformation of the economy
beginning in the 18th century. Industrialization created decades of problems, from changes in job structure
and skills demanded to horrendous
working conditions for those who did
get the new factory jobs; eventually,
though, industrialized economies
adjusted, with enormous increases
in prosperity. A major expansion of
education and the rise of labor unions
made sure that workers shared in
these gains.
Similarly, in the first part of the
20th century, in what’s been called the
RARELY DOES A day go by with- out more news predicting the end of work. After all, autonomous vehicles are all but certain to replace
truckers and taxi drivers in the coming decades, and robots have already
taken over many jobs in factories and
warehouses, and will continue to expand their reach beyond heavy industry as they become smarter and ever
more affordable.
Perhaps most frighteningly, even
professional services no longer seem
safe from the encroachment of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI). Law firms, for example,
employ electronic-discovery software,
which uses natural language processing to sift through reams of documents faster and more cheaply than
the entry-level lawyers who used to do
this tedious work. Deep-learning image recognition tools can flag and classify worrisome tumors in digital scans
as well as, or better than, experienced
radiologists. Websites like Wealth-front and Betterment, which algorith-mically optimize investment portfolios, are giving financial advisors a run
for their money.
No one doubts that automation is
replacing many jobs, but will advances
in technology also create plenty of new
jobs? If so, what kind(s)?
These questions have taken on new
urgency in the past year, as the startling rise of populism and the election of U.S. President Donald J. Trump
have awakened previously complacent white-collar workers to the plight
of the large numbers of Americans
left behind by automation and other
changes in the U.S. economy over the
past several decades.
For example, according to a widely
reported recent study by economists
Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Re-
strepo, industrial robots alone have
eliminated as many as 670,000 U.S.
jobs between 1990 and 2007. As some
displaced workers stay unemployed,
while others must settle for signifi-
cantly lower-paying work in the retail
and service sectors, society pays the
price in the form of lower consumer
spending, higher crime rates, and a
lower tax base.
“Two-thirds of people in this country
don’t have a four-year degree,” points
out Moshe Vardi, senior editor of Com-
munications and a professor of compu-
tational engineering at Rice University
who writes and lectures on the impact
of automation on work. “We have to
make sure we have an economy that
creates jobs for them—and not only
jobs for the people who have a Ph.D. in
computer science.”
What kinds of jobs will the tech-
driven economy create? Although no
one can peer into the future, experts
make educated guesses by looking
The New Jobs
As automation takes on more and more tasks,
what will human workers do?
Society | DOI: 10.1145/3157077 Marina Krakovsky