Chefs and truck drivers beware: AI is coming for your jobs
Chefs and truck drivers beware: AI is coming for your
jobs
By MATT O'BRIEN January 24, 2019
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.
Thursday’s report from the Washington think tank 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.
Though the United States is in the middle of its second
longest expansion in history, and jobs data suggest that the economy remains
healthy, many business leaders and economists have suggested in surveys that
the United States could slip into a recession in 2020. In addition, the partial
government shutdown has been creating anxieties about a downturn.
Some economic studies have found that 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.
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 and other retailers are preparing to open cashier-less stores powered
by in-store sensors or cameras with facial recognition technology.
The changes will hit hardest in smaller cities,
especially those in the heartland and the Rust Belt, according to the Brookings
report. The risk is highest in Indiana and Kentucky, where some counties have
nearly half the workforce employed in the labor-intensive manufacturing and
transportation industries. The changes will also disproportionately affect the
younger workers who dominate food services and other industries at highest risk
for automation.
“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.”
AP Economics Writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed
to this report.
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