Droids to steal ‘swathes’ of jobs in ‘dark robot revolution’, warns top economist
The Bank of England's chief economist has revealed his concerns over the rise of worker robots
ROBOTS are poised to take "swathes" of jobs from humans – and not just manual labour roles, either.
A leading economist has warned that as robotic tech improves, we could see the "dark side" of a fourth industrial revolution.
Andy Haldane, chief economist at the, Bank of England said: "The first three industrial revolutions have been about largely machines replacing humans doing principally manual tasks, whereas the fourth will be different.
"All of a sudden it will be the machine replacing humans doing thinking things, as well as doing things," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
In January, Britain's Centre for Cities think-tank warned over how employment outside of England's southern cities could be decimated over the next 12 years.
The ten cities with the biggest risk of robot redundancies are all based in the Midlands or the North.
But the safest cities are almost entirely based in the South, with the exception of a few key hubs like Edinburgh and York.
The fear is that the pace of low-skilled jobs being replaced by machines and computer systems will ramp up more quickly in areas that are already struggling economically.
"Given that the scale of job loss, job displacement is likely to be at least as large as that of the first three industrial revolutions, we will need even greater numbers of new jobs to be created in the future if we are not to suffer this longer-term feature called technological unemployment," Haldane told the BBC.
"It has not been a feature of the past, but could it possible be a feature of the future?
"I think that is a much more open question that at any previous point possibly in history."
He described how previous industrial revolutions had a "wrenching and lengthy impact" on the jobs market, affecting "large swathes of society".
"Jobs were effectively taken by machines of various types, there was a hollowing out of the jobs market, and that left a lot of people for a lengthy period out of work and struggling to make a living," Haldane explained.
"That heightened social tensions, it heightened financial tensions, it led to a rise in inequality.
"That hollowing out is going to be potentially on a much greater scale in the future, when we have machines both thinking and doing – replacing both the cognitive and the technical skills of humans."
Back in July, a report from the UN revealed how robots could turn humans into a new slave-labour force.
The report predicted that droids would nab a staggering 56% of low-skilled manufacturing roles in South East Asia over the next two decades, which would fuel human trafficking and slavery in those regions.
Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam are viewed as being particularly at risk from potential labour abuses stemming from this impending era of automation.
This grouping of countries, known as the ASEAN-5, stand to lose out due to their dependence on low-skilled jobs and existing high levels of labour violations.
"Displaced workers without the skills to adapt or the cushion of social security will have to compete for a diminishing supply of low-paid, low-skilled work in what will likely be an increasingly exploitative environment," said Verisk Maplecroft’s head of human rights, Dr Alexandra Channer.
"Without concrete measures from governments to adapt and educate future generations to function alongside machines, it could be a race to the bottom for many workers."
And speaking to The Sun earlier this year, futurologist Dr Ian Pearson said robots could genuinely dominate humanity.
"We'll have trained [artificial intelligence] to be like us, trained it to feel emotions like us, but it won't be like us. It will be a bit like aliens off Star Trek – smarter and more calculated in its actions," he explained.
"It will be insensitive to humans, viewing us as barbaric. So when it decides to carry out its own experiments, with viruses that it's created, it will treat us like guinea pigs."
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Andrew Carter, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities, said: "Automation and globalisation will bring huge opportunities to increase prosperity and jobs, but there is also a real risk that many people and places will lose out."
"The time to act is now – national and local leaders need to ensure that people in cities across the North and Midlands can share the benefits these changes could offer."
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