The role of AI and automation on the future of jobs and the opportunity to change society

Abstract

In today’s world, technology is an indispensable part of our daily life. More and more products are produced to satisfy the needs of a growing population and the Internet is creating new services every day. However, to be able to keep up with the growing demand, new technologies needed to be invented to increase the pace of production and to lower costs. Automating tasks was the solution and for many years machines did repetitive tasks, replaced people and created new and better jobs to substitute the old ones. Nowadays automation is reaching incredible levels and it is not creating enough jobs to replace the old ones. Will unemployment increase in the upcoming years or will humanity be able to adapt to a different job market? Our study focuses on the types of unemployment caused by automation and on the possible solutions that society needs to implement. The research also points out how people from different social classes face the changing job market and how all can benefit from it. A new form of governance of society may be needed, in view of previous failed forms including fascism, communism, and, more recently, liberalism. In the future there will be fewer and fewer jobs that cannot be replaced by a robot. With this, the probability of mass unemployment is very high. An ideology promoting a Universal Basic Income could be a solution to combat the massive unemployment that automation may cause in the future, especially in medium-skilled jobs.