Oxford researchers: Nearly half of U.S. jobs are vulnerable to computerization

According to a recent report from Oxford Martin School’s Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, 45% of American jobs are at a high risk of being taken over by computers within the next 20 years. 

The authors of the study believe this takeover will happen in two stages. First, computers will be put in place of humans in easily automated fields like transportation / logistics, production labor, and administrative support.

Also at risk during this stage: jobs in sales, services, and construction.

Next, the rate of replacement will slow down due to hurdles in harder-to-automate fields (like engineering). This pause in workplace computerization will lead to a focus on the development of artificial intelligence. Depending on the success of this technology, a second wave of automation will follow.

Jobs at risk during this stage include those in management, science, engineering, and the arts.

The authors acknowledged that there are several factors that could affect how quickly workplace computerization happens, chief among them access to cheap labor and regulation of new technology.

Their results, which were calculated using a common statistical model, are hard to argue: more than 700 jobs on an online career site were considered, as well as the skills and education required for each position type. These features were then weighted according to how automatable they were, and according to any engineering obstacles that might get in the way of it being computerized.

All is not lost, though: “Our findings thus imply that as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerization — i.e., tasks that required creative and social intelligence,” the authors write. “For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.”

Story via: technologyreview.com