(Newswire.net — December 24, 2016) — Robots pose a greater threat to US jobs than underpaid migrants. A new report claims that robots could destroy the US economy in the next 20 years.
The report made by Obama’s administration warned that automation could wipe as much as half of jobs in the US by 2036, and urged the government to pay attention to education and job-training programs.
Studying the potential threat to US economy, the researchers found out that the development of the Artificial Intelligence in the next 20 years could wipe out up to 47 percent of jobs in the US, which would cause the economy to crash.
The authors of a 55 pages long report say that job transformations “will open up new opportunities for individuals, the economy, and society, but they have the potential to disrupt the current livelihoods of millions of Americans.”
The report emphasizes that automation in the 21st century marks a new era of mass production, in the same way as the Industrial Revolution in the 20th century destroyed the livelihoods of many skilled craftsmen.
It is difficult to measure how automation will affect jobs since there is much more than one single technology in question and the result can vary from 9 to 47 percent of destroyed jobs. However, it is impossible to determine how many new jobs the advanced technology industry would require. Therefore, proper education and timely transformation can damper the impact of introducing robots in the mass production industry.
Which jobs are likely to vanish in the future stampede of AI technology?
Industries such as transportation and fast food are already in process of transformation and in a next decade or two we can expect many innovations such as self-driving trucks, automated public transportation, driverless trains and buses.
Automated ordering systems completely disrupt the purpose of kiosks and delivery giants are already testing drones that can deliver light shipments.
Assembly lines in production facilities have been leaning towards automation for years and some giant companies are bragging they are close to 100 percent of automation. Major vehicle production industry companies introduced robots to car assembling lines, leaving thousands of skilled workers without jobs.
It is not only the economy that is affected but the country’s defenses as well. The effects of automation in the military force are seen across the world through unmanned vehicles, pilot-less aircrafts, robots and computers instead of soldiers trained to do the job.
A September report released by Forrester Research found that 6 percent of jobs could be taken by “early-stage intelligent agents” by 2021.
A November brief from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) claimed that up to two-thirds of all jobs in the developing world could be replaced by automation.
According to a research performed by Oxford University and a consultancy firm, Deloitte, more than 1.3 million Brits could lose their jobs to computers by 2030.