How robots are stealing good office jobs – The Wall Street Journal

DUBLIN — Technology has been replacing human workers since we first attached plows to oxen. Usually, this is all to the good. Instead of ten people having to draw rakes through a field, one person can make two oxen drag a giant rake through the field and the other nine can do other, more complex and valuable tasks like making giant rakes for oxen to use. There are also usually panics when a new technology comes in – witness, for example, the story of the Luddites. Because, historically, things have worked out OK, many economists say that the next wave of technology – AI and complex task automation – is nothing to worry about. It will all come out in the wash. The problem, of course, is that while this may be true in the long term, it comes as cold comfort to those suffering in the short term. The article below explains how robots with ever-more sophisticated AI are increasingly able to handle a lot of the complex office jobs that we mere humans currently grind away at. Economists will say that all the displaced accountants, lawyers, receptionists, and call centre agents can simply get better, new jobs as data scientists and tech billionaires. Unfortunately, it takes many years and a lot of schooling to be a data scientist and a lot of luck to be a tech billionaire. These are not really jobs for the masses. McKinsey estimates that 400 to 800 millions jobs could be lost to automation by 2030. We don't really need 800 million data scientists. Nor do we have the capacity to train them. So, while we should indeed welcome technologies that will improve human living standards and provide us with safer products and more leisure, we need to seriously consider how we're going to help those displaced by the next wave of change. – Felicity Duncan

White-Collar Robots Are Coming for Jobs

By Richard Baldwin

Amelia works at the online and phone-in help desks at the Swedish bank SEB. Blond and blue-eyed, she has a confident bearing softened by a slightly self-conscious smile. Amelia also works in London for the Borough of Enfield and in Zurich for UBS. And did I mention that Amelia can memorise a 300-page manual in 30 seconds, speak 20 languages and handle thousands of calls simultaneously?

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