Two-thirds of jobs in Las Vegas automated by 2035? The rest of the U.S. isn’t far behind...
Opinion: Two-thirds of jobs in this city could be
automated by 2035
Published: July 5, 2017 4:19 p.m. ET
The rest of the U.S. isn’t far behind Las Vegas
Robots are invisibly invading Las Vegas.
By JESS CHEN & JOHANNES MOENIUS
We are walking down the strip in Las Vegas in the year
2035.
The lights are glaringly flashing, music is pounding your
ears, the usual nine Elvis look-alikes try to pose with you for a few dollars.
A few robots are crisscrossing between the legs of passersby, offering ticket
services, information and to be their guide. Self-driving vehicles bring
gamblers from casino to casino. A robot group performs a break dance, and you
can compete against Robo-MJ in basketball.
Vegas is still Vegas, so nothing has really changed. Or
has it?
Maybe it won’t be visible to the eye, but robots may have
taken the place where people currently toil to keep the Vegas machine humming.
About 65% of all jobs in Vegas are susceptible to automation by 2035 — a bigger
share than in any other part of the country. Across the U.S., 55% (or more) of
jobs in almost all metropolitan areas face this same scenario.
Who will be at risk? How many jobs will be lost by then?
And what will life look like?
Scientists are heatedly debating whether robots and
artificial intelligence (AI) will appear as colossally in our lives as some
studies predict. Will we really see mass adoption of robots and AI gadgets?
The reality is both technologies already have seen mass
adoption and it is foolish not to expect it to accelerate. Every smartphone
already is essentially an AI device, and 1.5 billion of those were shipped in
2016. Some 1.6 million industrial robots operated worldwide in 2015, a total
that’s expected to increase to 2.6 million by 2019.
Research shows that if all these 1 million additional
robots worldwide are merely as productive as those that already exist, each
robot would on average replace the work done by 5.7 U.S. workers, or 5.7
million workers in all.
More worrisome is that if robot adoption continued to
grow at the same pace beyond 2019, about 18 million industrial robots would be
installed worldwide in 2035 and would perform the work equivalent to about 100
million U.S. workers. Put another way, this robotic workforce would be capable
of producing the equivalent of the current manufacturing output on the entire
planet.
Then there is the robotic invasion of the service sector,
where most Americans work. Machines have already displaced service workers over
the last few decades (think ATMs and self-checkout stations in grocery stores),
but added intelligence allows machines now to take on tasks from room cleaning
to radiology.
How quickly this transition can happen can most easily be
seen in household services, where robots can substitute for hired services. In
2015, 3.7 million household robots were sold worldwide — and that is expected
to jump to almost 31 million annually by 2019. At growth rates after 2019
similar to those we currently see in industrial robots, we can expect annual
sales of about 220 million units in 2035.
Right now, these robots mow lawns and clean carpets. They
serve food and mix drinks in bars; by 2019 they will perform X-ray analysis
with higher accuracy than the average radiologist can provide.
What could they be doing by 2035? Almost everything
routine, including highly paid tasks such as routine surgery, regional economic
analysis, and flying commercial airplanes.
So the key to understanding what may happen to Vegas —
and the rest of the U.S. service sector — is that the recent advances in
robotics and AI make those technologies continuously more affordable.
Additionally, hardware in many AI applications is less costly than entire
robots. Self-driving cars and trucks don’t need much more than added
intelligence, and similarly for vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers.
More than 90% of U.S. workers are in a service job,
ranging from cashiers to surgeons. Given the expected high speed of this
transformation, it will be a gigantic challenge for the economy to create
additional or entirely new jobs at the same pace as robots can replace existing
jobs.
What will Vegas look like when you drive down the Strip
in 2035? Most of the automatable jobs won’t be in the streets, but in
restaurants, offices and retail stores. Some 54% of all automatable jobs in
Vegas belong to food preparation and serving, office and sales occupations.
Where the robots will really make a difference is mostly in jobs at the lower
end of the pay scale. But that’s not going to last.
However, not all jobs that can be automated will be
automated. It is hard to imagine a high-end jewelry store or designer boutique
without sales clerks or a gourmet restaurant without waiters. However, not only
will their back offices be staffed more thinly but their sales strategies will
likely also change. Foot and even full-body scanners are already available to
find the perfect size for shoes and clothes, which can speed up the sales
process. And why not have them made to order right on the spot from a machine?
Point of sales and point-of-use production are just around the corner.
Whether we all will be able to benefit from this brave
new world will depend on our ability to bring education and lifelong learning
specifically to those at the highest risk of automation. Those with less than a
high-school diploma face a six times higher risk losing their job to a robot
than those with a doctorate, such as a Ph.D. or MD.
Given the uneven distribution of education and jobs
across racial and ethnic groups, hispanics are 25% and African-Americans 13%
more at risk to lose their job to automation than whites. Twice as many women
than men work in occupations that are at an especially high risk of automation,
such as tellers and cashiers.
Our political leaders are remarkably silent about this
issue, despite its explosive potential for the labor market and beyond. By
comparison, the historical effects of trade policies are mere ripples on the
water. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which the U.S. can scale education
and job creation as quickly as international competition for the robotics
market can scale the production of robots and AI devices.
And this prospect sends cold shivers down our spines.
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