Will AI drive out human jobs?

By Dr. Jeffrey I. Kim

The First Industrial Revolution began in the U.K. and spread to Europe and the U.S. during the period 1760s to 1840s. Every industrial revolution is identified by revolutionary innovations in industrial technology. During the first revolution, hand production methods were replaced by machine tools.

The Luddite movement occurred during 1811-1816 against fast industrialization. The Luddites were a secret oath-based organization of English textile workers. They feared machines would soon eliminate their job.

Lower-skilled workers strongly opposed to mechanization and automation. They became violent, breaking the new machines and even attacking the managers and factory owners. The Luddite movement was suppressed by the British Parliament's harsh punishment.

The Second Industrial Revolution started from the end of the 19th century and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. During this period people made massive technological advancements. They got access to new sources of energy such as electricity, gas, and oil. In addition, the automobile, airplane, telegraph, and telephone were invented.

The Third Industrial Revolution began from the second half of the 20th century. Scientists invented nuclear energy. This revolution brought forth the rise of electronics, telecommunications and computers. Robotics is the symbol of this period. From 1980 industrial robots began to be made in large numbers.

These robots are microprocessor-controlled and smarter. Industrial robots are increasingly becoming more intelligent and versatile. In the future, they are expected to be capable of working without human intervention and take over most of the manufacturing processes.

Now people are experiencing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Global economies are based on the internet. With the development of digital technology, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are taking the increasing role in moving the economy forward fast. With the trend of globalization, the role of AI seems to be ever increasing.

Richard Baldwin, one of the world's leading experts and professor of international economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, published an eye-catching book titled, “The Globotics Upheaval” in 2019. “Globotics” is the combination of globalization and robotics.

He argued that AI-trained computers will threaten the lives of millions of white-collar workers much faster than automation, industrialization, and globalization disrupted the lives of blue-collar workers in previous centuries. He also argued that digital technology allows talented foreigners to telecommute into any workplaces and compete for service and professional jobs.

Actually robotics and AI are two different concepts. Robotics is a branch of technology that deals with physical robots. Robots are programmable machines that are usually able to carry out a series of actions autonomously. Robotics involves designing, building and programming physical robots which are able to interact with the physical world.

By contrast, AI is a branch of computer science. It involves developing computer programs to complete tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence.

AI algorithms can tackle learning, perception, problem-solving, language-understanding and logical reasoning. Most AI programs are not used to control robots. AI techniques help to solve many challenging problems in dealing with big data.

Big data includes data sets with sizes beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture and process data. It can be described by four “Vs” ― (1) volume, (2) variety, (3) velocity, and (4) veracity (data quality).

Although Prof. Baldwin had envisaged more interactive economic activities in the world, the future global economic environment does not seem to be much favorable in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic disaster.

First of all, globalization may slow down. Multilateralism in trade may be replaced by bilateralism or unilateralism. Global supply chains may collapse and trade protectionism would bounce back. So it is not clear if the white-collar workers will lose their job by the power of globotics.

However, those who work in the field of artificial intelligence, particularly in cloud computing, may be safe. Regardless of whether the world is continually globalizing or not, those companies providing big-data management service will remain internationally competitive.

As artificial intelligence further progresses, it will take over large sectors of workforce and inevitably bring about some scale of unemployment and social unrest by substitution effect. But in the medium or long run, it creates new opportunities for workers and managers by the market-expansion effects through productivity increases and overall cost-savings.

Dr. Jeffrey I. Kim (ickim@skku.ac.kr), former foreign investment ombudsman, is a professor emeritus at Sungkyunkwan University. He earned a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago and taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the American University, Washington, D.C.