“Evidence is mounting that savings from emerging Internet of Things technologies, especially AI and Robotics, will be paid for by an unprecedented number of semi-skilled jobs disappearing all over the world. There will be over 10 million jobs in the US alone, replaced in the industry over the next 15 years by Robotics and AI, saving companies hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Globally such savings could eventually reach into trillions of dollars.”
The impact will come from robotics on the one hand, which cuts jobs associated with the physical world, and AI which slashes them in the digital world. We think of robots as moving atoms, and AI organizing bits. They both have an equally potent bearing on jobs.
Millions of truck drivers will worry about emerging autonomous vehicles. Hundreds of thousands of workers in insurance, engineering, IT helpdesks, customer services, field service engineers, and in the rugged environment of oil and gas will be displaced bu AI, and take the eventual casualties to over 10 million job cuts in the US alone. As chat bots are perfected, the axe will begin to fall on these and many other occupations.
It’s hard to extract income tax from a driverless car, and even harder to request worker’s rights for a taxi driven by AI.
These technologies will disrupt economies, deprive governments of vital income tax, but bring huge benefits to the early adopters, and kill off big brands who are too slow to embrace them.
Should we bemoan the loss of these jobs or push as hard as we can to create progress?
The answer is simple. You are either one of the companies making money from these opportunities, or you are part of those being swept aside by the tide of history. The global economy always bounces back.
This report unravels the rate of uptake in Robotics and the frenzy behind AI adoption, which threatens to overtake it, with $12 billion of investment spent across 2,000 AI companies in the past 5 years.
Chloe Spring (Marketing Manager): [email protected]
Office Phone: +44 (0)1179 257019
Subscribing to Riot for the same price, includes 10 more forecasts a year on IoT technologies.