Rise of the Robots

Robots and self-service technology in the service sector will continue to make inroads, holding down wages and leaving relatively unskilled workers with fewer options.

Robots and self-service technology in the service sector will continue to make inroads, holding down wages and leaving relatively unskilled workers with fewer options. Widespread disruption. Automation is no longer confined to manufacturing, but is rapidly spreading to services, retail, agriculture, and knowledge work. Technologies like industrial robots, self-service kiosks, and AI systems are eliminating jobs or reducing wages across industries. This trend is accelerating as capabilities improve and costs decrease. Few jobs are safe. Even skilled professions once thought immune to automation are now at risk. Legal research, financial analysis, medical diagnosis, and other knowledge-intensive fields are being disrupted by artificial intelligence and big data systems. As machine learning and robotics advance, an ever-growing share of human labor is at risk of being automated away.

Watson is currently the most ambitious and prominent application of artificial intelligence to medicine, but there are other important success stories as well. AI in knowledge work. Artificial intelligence systems like IBM's Watson are increasingly capable of performing knowledge-intensive tasks once thought to require human-level intelligence. These include medical diagnosis, legal research, financial analysis, and even creative work like writing news articles. Automation of analysis. Big data and machine learning allow computers to analyze vast amounts of information and identify patterns that humans may miss. This enables automation of many analytical and decision-making tasks in fields like finance, marketing, and management. Even high-level strategic planning may eventually be performed by AI systems. Key white-collar fields at risk: Law (e.g. legal research, document review) Medicine (e.g. diagnosis, treatment planning) Finance (e.g. investment analysis, algorithmic trading) Journalism (e.g. automated article writing) Management (e.g. data-driven decision making)

Measured in 2013 dollars, a typical worker—that is, production and nonsupervisory workers in the private sector, representing well over half the American workforce—earned about $767 per week in 1973. The following year, real average wages began a precipitous decline from which they would never fully recover. Wage stagnation. Despite dramatic increases in productivity and economic growth over the past few decades, wages for most workers have stagnated or even declined in real terms. This represents a fundamental break from the historic relationship between rising productivity and rising wages. Gains go to capital. The benefits of increased productivity are now accruing primarily to business owners and investors rather than workers. Labor's share of national income has fallen dramatically, while corporate profits have soared to record levels. This shift reflects the growing power of capital relative to labor in an increasingly automated economy.