1. The Future of Automation: Complementing or Replacing the Human Laborer ?
Abstract
In 19th century England there was a group of textile laborers called the Luddites. The infamous
group caused wide scale destruction of capital in response to the automation of their textile industry. In
21st century America, expert economists predict that there will be wide scale automation across all
industries in the coming twenty years and an uninformed public is vulnerable to massive amounts of
layoffs. If the automation of one industry can give rise to a group like the Luddites, the negative
externalities that can come with the automation of almost every industry, are ominous to say the least.
Therefore, in an effort to strengthen the working population’s understanding of future automation, this
research document will aim to convey what jobs are at high risk of being automated in the next two
decades and what will be the future implications of wide scale automation. In regards to the implications
of long term and wide scale automation, there are two clearly defined theories of thought. The first school
of thought proclaims that there will be a reallocation of labor in response to automation and therefore
automation will complement human labor. On the other hand, the second school of thought predicts one
day the labor force will become almost entirely automated and thus, society will need a shift away from
modern capitalism to a new form of economy. Specifically, this new economy needs to function without
human wage earners while still allowing the exchange of goods and services. Different aspects of these
two schools of thought stem from the Journal of Economic Perspective’s Why Are There Still So Many
Jobs? The history and Future of Workplace Automation, Byrnjolfsen and Mcafee’s The Second Machine

2. Age, World Economic Forum’s How will automation affect society, and Journalist’s Resources Robots at
work: The economic effects of workplace automation. After carefully examining each of the resources,
empirical evidence suggests that in the short term, automation will indeed complement an educated labor
force but in the long term, society will have to find a way to function without human laborers.
Introduction
Automation has captivated the attention of an entire twenty first century global economy. But,
the replacement of human labor in exchange for machine capital transcends centuries. In the 1780’s,
the automation of flour mills (mostly located in the northern states) helped decrease the need for slaves
in the making of flour (Cochran 1). The industrial revolution displaced hundreds of thousands of workers
in the textile industry. During the end of the twentieth century, the automobile industry experienced
massive layoffs because of the vast collection of automated machines that now inhabit warehouse
assembly lines (Autor 1). Historically, if automation did not aid in the emancipation of you as a slave,
then automating a particular field was not received well by the laborers of that field, whom no longer
have jobs. Yet every industry has evolved to adapt to the newest labor demands. But computer
scientists and economists alike foresee a technological revolution coming in the next two decades that
will transform the U.S. economy forever. While historical data shows that humans have adjusted to
technology’s advancement, there has never been a reallocation of labor and jobs as wide spread, as
there will be in the next two decades (Autor 5).
While at the moment there is an ongoing discussion about automation’s short term
implications, this argument is not nearly sufficient enough to help educate a human labor force of the
future transformation in the economy as a whole. At the moment experts only see the implications of
automation, across all job markets, in the short term. Because of this short sightedness many articles
proclaim that automation will only complement human labor. This view can be best described as

3. optimistically naïve. In reality every job market is susceptible to at least some degree of automation. Up
until this point in history, automation has mostly displaced low service jobs such as manufacturing
positions, cashiers, telephone operators etc. In reality these positions were automated at the turn of
this past century and have recently been implemented on a wide scale. Automation of the next two
decades will have no bounds and will not be confined to low service positions. Artificial intelligence will
do more research than any leading scientist in the world, machines will learn to program themselves as
well as other machines and stock market investing can be optimized by the most intricate and complex
of algorithms. While all fields will experience some level of automation, there are glaring signs as to
which fields will feel the effects of automation the fullest extent.
The discussion of long term automation needs to be made at this very moment. An uninformed
laborer could lose their source of income unexpectedly. An uninformed collegiate scholar could see their
prospective field completely automated conveniently at the time their hundreds of thousands of dollars
in loans is due. Chief economist of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, predicts that 15,000,000 United
Kingdom and 80,000,000 United States jobs are at risk of being automated (Gibbs 1). If there was a
disease that put almost one hundred million laborers, in these two countries alone, at risk of losing their
job/career, there would be a global crisis. The governments’ of the United Kingdom and the United
States of America would write a blank check to any organization that could inform the public about this
disease as thoroughly and extensively as possible. Until that day occurs, there are three particularly
important pieces of information that all laborers should know. These three claims will be thoroughly
investigated and conveyed throughout this research document. Firstly, as automated machines are now
beginning to master cognitive functions, automation will no longer be confined to any particular field
but instead, some portion of automation will affect all industries. Also, because almost half of all the
jobs in both the United Kingdom and United States are at risk of being automated, there are salient and
widespread implications of automation. Finally, because automated technologies are experiencing

4. recombinant growth, the effects of automation will be felt even faster than the boldest expert is willing
to predict.
Research Review
The sources, The History and Future of the Workplace, The Economic Effects of
Workplace Automation, How Will, Automation Effect Society?, Automation Alone Isn’t Killing
Jobs, & The Second Machine Age, Egyptian Lingerie, the Robot Future, and The Future Of
Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization? all either successful convey or
indirectly aid in informing readers on the short term effects and implications of automation.
These sources provide an accurate forecast of automation in the coming five to ten years.
The phrase “reallocation of labor” can summarize the widely agreed upon short term
implications of automation. Almost all economic experts predict that in the beginning stages of
automation, there will be a shift in labor demand from fields that become automated to fields that
emerge due to automation. In Egyptian Lingerie and the Robot Future, author Peter Frase
discusses a possible reallocation of labor in northern Egypt’s lingerie factory industry. He finds
that the workers in this region are mostly young and female. Frase conveys the regional social
schools of thought by stating that Egyptian men are too disobedient and lazy to partake in the
grueling labor that occurs in these factories. Frase’s main claim, in his report, is that these
workers are being treated as if they were machines. He argues that machines could actually
lessen the stress on employment in this region, by not only taking the jobs that are almost
inhumane but also providing high paying technician and machine maintenance jobs as well. This
flow of jobs from one industry (factory positions) to another (automated machine technicians) is
the very definition of “reallocation of labor.”

5. Frases’s case example contributes also to the theory of “polarization of income due to
technology,” that is thoroughly explained in chapter 9 of Byrnsjolfsen’s and Mcafee’s The
Second Machine Age. Automation technology favors the educated and replaces the uneducated;
while a few are being paid more than ever, many are losing their jobs to automization. Therefore,
to be educated in technology is essential for climbing the socio economic ladder in the twenty
first century. For automation to complement and aid human laborers in the short term, the
archaic United States’ education model needs to adapt to the twenty first century. At the same
age children in America learn how to read and write, children in Estonia, Singapore and Hong
Kong are learning the basics of software programming (Liu 1). A nation once revered for being
the leader in education, opportunity and prosperity, now provides its children a severe
disadvantage for tomorrow’s job market. Experts from all these research sources almost
unanimously agree that, in the short term, automation will only complement and benefit a
technologically educated society.
While these research documents very accurately describe where automation is at the
moment and make attempts to predict where automation is going to head, they fall short in
conveying the bigger picture. A road may have many turns and obstacles that can deceive even
the experienced traveler, if that traveler does not know the road’s final destination. Experts who
make statements about automation’s first turn, cannot provide complete information on where
automation will head next without contemplating where automation’s final destination will be.
While at the moment fields are being created because of automation, this is just the first turn of
automation. The duration of this research document will take you from this first turn, that many
experts argue is the extent of automation, and bring you to the final destination of automation.

6. Fields at High Risk of Being Automated
The coming automation evolution will be unparalleled in comparison to any other
technological revolution of the past because in this day and age, no job can escape the shadow of
automation. Oxford economist Carl Frey and machine learning expert Michael Osborne predict
that about one in every two jobs (47% of all jobs) are at high risk (high risk meaning a 70% or
greater chance of being automated in the next ten to twenty years) of being replaced by
automation in ten to twenty years (Frey & Osborne 38). No longer will automation be subject to
just low service types of positions. In saying that, low service jobs make up a significant portion
of the 47% of positions that are at high risk of being automated.

7. (Source: The Atlantic’s What Jobs Will the Robots Take?)
(The bar graphs shows the extreme scenarios of automation. The jobs with no bar at all have
been predicted to virtually not be automated. In contrast, the jobs with bars are positions that
have virtually a 100% chance of being automated)
Along with low service jobs, manufacturing positions find themselves at high risk of
being automated. Machines have already proven their superiority of building in numerous
industries (automobile, construction, aviation etc.). There will be a shift from corporations out

8. sourcing their factory positions to third world countries, to companies bringing their automated
factories back close to their consumers in the United States. The loss of manufacturing jobs in
the United States of America will attribute to the polarization of income domestically. These
manufacturing jobs were once the middle class backbone of America. With the outside option of
automation, Unions will also see their bargaining power with large firms diminish. The loss of
well paying manufacturing jobs combined with the loss of Union bargaining (bargaining for
overtime hours, better pay, paid sick leave etc.) would only diminish the already shrinking
middle class.
It would not be a bold statement to say that within ten years that almost the entire
commercial transportation industry will be automated. With all of the recent advances on self-
driving vehicles, truck drivers, taxi drivers, and bus drivers will need to acquire new skills and
enter a new job market. For employers the added benefit of automating a human labor position,
such as a truck driver, is nonstop driving, long term reduction of cost (the high cost of automated
machine capital will be repaid over time directly through the reduction of wages but also
indirectly through the increase in productivity), and the reduction of human variability. Self-
autonomous cars have already proven to have a better traffic record than their human driver
counterparts.
The most shocking industry that automated machines will dig their way into, is sales.
This claim is predicated on recent improvements in algorithms that can better learn human
interactions from experience. Positions highest at risk in the sales industry are jobs that involve
interactive tasks but do not require a high degree of social intelligence. Cashiers, telemarketers,
and data entry keyers all have a 99% chance of being automated (Atlantic 1).

9. The Australian Industry Report of 2013-2014 will drive home the main point of this
argument: automation is not restrained to only unskilled labor fields. In the report’s list of the 10
fields at highest risk of being automated, there lie professional positions such as, accountants,
pharmacists, and auditing clerks, to go along with lower skilled positions such as, mail carriers,
butchers, and secretaries (Cully 58). Never before have positions that require college or graduate
degrees been considered some of the most at risk jobs of being automated, providing evidence
that this automation revolution will be unlike any other in human history. With coming
innovations in automative technologies, more and more “high skilled” positions will be at high
risk of being automated.
The Implications & Growth of Automation
The core issue at play in the future of automation is twofold. The problem results from
the combination of a lack of understanding regarding the long term economic effects of
automation and preparation for their unknown ramifications. The danger is similar to being a
naïve boxer in a boxing ring, not knowing your opponent has a dangerous left hook, then being
knocked out by this lethal blow. We need to be informed about that left hook before we suffer
the consequences. In the case of the labor market, we need to be informed about the future of
automation before it strips us of our careers.
The implications of automation are dependent on societies understanding of which fields
are at high risk. If society chooses to remain ignorant, in denial, or unaware of automation’s
evolution then disastrous externalities will come to fruition. More and more workers will be laid
off unexpectedly, causing panic. Because society will still remembers the effects of the world
economic recession of 2008, consumers will cut spending and start saving, in an effort to try and
ride out the storm. This reduction in spending will further deteriorate our consumer driven

10. economy. The machines may be used as the scapegoat for this future recession and workers of all
fields may even go to work in an effort to sabotage the automated machines that took their
positions. This destruction of automated machines is similar to the actions of textile workers in
England when the industrial revolution’s textile machines replaced these workers. The resulting
damage was devastating and caused a massive loss in GDP to the textile industry. In fact the
British Military was called in to put to rest these textile vigilantes who called themselves
Luddities (Autor 1). If the military in England was needed to put to rest revolts subject to only a
single automated job market, one could only imagine the ramifications of revolts in thousands of
automated job markets. To top it all off, the destruction of capital will only degrade the economy
even further. Yet, if laborers can be informed of the jobs that will be replaced by automation and
of the jobs that will experience increases in salary because of automation, educated decisions can
be made to avoid massive amounts of layoffs and a future economic recession. Individuals who
educate themselves on which fields are at high risk of being automated, as well as, on which
fields are going to experience economic prosperity, will be the most prepared for the coming
revolution. Taking this thought a step further, those individuals who acquire the skills to work
the fields experiencing economic prosperity due to automation can climb the socio economic
ladder into the wealthy class of citizens.
Why do innovative automated technology advance at an unimaginable rate? Automated
technology grows so aggressively and accelerates so quickly, that the term “recombinant”
needed to be coined, to describe this particular type of technological growth (Byrnjolfsen &
Mcafee 38). But what causes this accelerated growth? These automated technologies are
spreading and growing so quickly in part because trillions of funds worldwide get put into this
field but also because of what Byrnjolfsen and Mcafee call a limit of recombinant growth.

11. Society can hardly understand and fully process all the applications of an existing technology
before a new one is out. This lack of understanding causes innovation in multiple strings, a few
main strings but also thousands of sub strings. For example, the automobile industry continues to
innovate itself (becoming more fuel efficient, safe, and ecofriendly) even though the invention of
the plane has been out for decades. On the main string is the evolution from car to plane but the
car still continues to be innovated because we did not fully perfect the automobile before the
plane was invented. The lack in completely understanding current automated technologies causes
current automated technologies to be improved over same the period of time that new automated
technologies are created. Thus you have innovation occurring along multiple fronts.
A Post Capitalistic Society
Many economic experts believe that, at least in the near future, automation will only
complement human labor (Cowen 1). Economic experts make the claim that, human consumers
will always want to interact with another human over a machine or robot. But this idea that
society will always value human to human interaction, stems from the way pre-millennial
generations experienced childhood through adulthood. For example, these experts of the Baby
Boomer & Generation X era, grew up in a society that valued talking to their neighbors, a society
that knocked on the doors of neighborhood friends every day asking if Johnny or Susy could
come outside to play, and a society who had mastered the art of conversating and storytelling.
The predictions of today’s experts are predicated on the values that were inevitably conveyed to
them, when they grew up in a world where human to human communication was valued. But
today’s children (the experts of tomorrow) are growing up in a generation that would rather
interface with virtual technology than communicate with real humans. The question is, what will

12. happen when these children are making the vital legislation and important decisions of
tomorrow?
There will come a day where all of the labor force will consist of solely machines and
robots. The coming automation evolution will be unparalleled in comparison to any other
technological revolution of the past because in this day and age, no job can escape the shadow of
automation (Wong 1). Machines will program each other, artificial intelligence will keep
progressing society much like the researchers of today do. Innovation will stem from these smart,
“artificially intelligent” machines. Society will revolve around leisure and hobbies; humans will
no longer be enslaved, working for a living. Most importantly, because of the “recombinant”
growth of automated technologies this day will come sooner than any economist is willing to
predict.
When all production and new innovation is left up to machines and artificial intelligence,
a different system will be required to decide how much a single person is allowed to consume. A
possible solution to this problem would be to assign yearly consumption expenditures to
individuals based upon their value to a leisure society. For example, the government would give
an individual a certain type of expenditure allowance based upon an audit of their skills. More
people than ever could dedicate their time to being musicians, artists, writers, athletes,
astronauts, or whatever other profession of choice. Not only can individuals strive to explore
their passions, but individuals also will be given expenditure power as a result of their passion.
Individuals will be allowed to consume more than ever because production efficiency of
machines will be recombinantly greater than that of humans. Also, humans will not be subject to
one “career” that eventually will become monotonous, the beauty to this type of society is that

13. humans no longer will be enslaved to the bondage of “making a living.” Expenditure allowances
will cater to the desired professions of individuals, not the other way around.
The pessimistic statement, of a particular job never being automated, is a claim of the
past. Automation’s new” fluidity” (namely that it is not confined to any particular field) can
benefit an educated and a technologically prepared society. This preparation can help at most the
next two-three generations before the scholars of tomorrow need to implement a new economic
model that deals with an autonomous labor force. Just as the leading software engineers of thirty
years ago, could have never predicted the computing power of even a mere twenty first century
cellphone, the leading software engineers of today cannot fathom how far recombinant
automative technologies will head in the next thirty years.
Conclusions
The postmodern economic model would be a drastic contrast to the consumer driven
capitalistic society of this day and age. Therefore experts have a hard time envisioning such
massive changes to their beloved capitalistic system. But massive changes to the economic
model of the United States is not a novel idea. In 1941, 41% of the labor force worked in the
field of agriculture. Yet in 2010, through governmental intervention and agricultural innovation,
that number dwindled down to just 2% of the entire labor force (Autor 5). Experts have
historically had pessimistic views on the innovation of society In 1966, the New York Times
proclaimed that online shopping will never amount to anything significant (Forbes 1).

14. (Estimated values of the United States’ Online Shopping Market)
How could experts at the world’s most reputable news company miss a growing three hundred
billion dollar industry? In 2004 the Nokia 2600 was the bestselling phone in the entire world,
predicted to dominate the cell phone market for at least the next decade (Atlantic 1). In fact, in
April of 2007, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was quoted boasting, “There’s no chance that the
iPhone is going to get any significant market share (Forbes 1).” Nine years later and Apple Inc.
has the upper hand in a previously Microsoft monopolized market. In the first quarter of 2016
Apple earned $51,635,000,000 from iPhone sales. To put that in perspective, Apple earned more
than $17,000,000,000 per month, more than $4,000,000,000 a week, more than $600,000,000 a
week, and more than 2.5 million dollars an hour, just from iPhone Sales (Statista 1). A mere ten
years ago, engineers scoffed at the idea of automobiles driving themselves. Now the entire
commercial transportation industry faces the threat of being entirely automated in the next

15. decade. Needless to say, the pessimism and short sightedness of experts has fell far short from
accurately predicting industries and industry size in the past. Therefore, in the case of the
automation industry, it is not a farfetched idea to state within the next one hundred years society
will be living with an entirely autonomous labor force, under a new unprecedented economic
model.
If society remains complacent to the changes that are occurring in the recombinantly
growing automation industry, there will be a very violent and rude awakening. While in the short
term education on automation can cause individuals to prosper, the long term solution to a fully
autonomous labor force is to invent a new economic model. Society should embrace
technological innovation because innovators will never stop innovating and we will never halt or
progress as an advanced civilization. Media outlets report innovation in the automation industry
as if it was venomous to the labor force. In reality, these automations are what allow the human
race to thrive and experience exponential increases in population size. Today, more is being
produced from the same amount of raw materials that were cultivated decades ago, increasing
productivity and efficiency while lowering costs. With the help of governmental intervention and
new generations of thought, automation will lift the bonds society has so intricately woven
between humans and labor.

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