Will Robots Take Your Job? by Nigel M. de S. Cameron

Author:Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2017-06-09T04:00:00+00:00

Thinking clearly about the future

So, how should we think about the future? We need to take it seriously, even if we are not sure which future it is likely to be. Let's look at all the plausible futures, decide how probable each one is, and do our best to prepare for all likely outcomes – and their respective risk profiles.

A simple approach to assessing risk starts by assigning possible outcomes to four categories – four boxes in a simple matrix: High Impact and High Probability; High Impact and Low Probability; Low Impact and High Probability; Low Impact and Low Probability. Plainly, the first two are the ones that matter most. And the second is the trickiest.

There are in fact two separate arguments here, and they can be distinguished for the purpose of risk analysis. One refers to the likelihood of serious structural unemployment; the other to the likelihood of a failure to recover from such turbulence in the labor market and the long-term whittling away of the economy's capacity to sustain “full employment” in a future in which AI/robotics has been substantially deployed. Is there a High or Low Probability of serious structural unemployment? Either way, if it happens it will have a major impact on developed (and potentially developing) societies. If there is a failure thereafter to recover “full employment” levels – which is the scenario suggested by Gates, Summers and Murray – then the impact becomes very much greater.

As we face the future, it's difficult to see how policymakers can avoid some hard thinking about the future of jobs.

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