The paper’s authors, Lukas Schlogl and Andy Sumner, say it’s impossible to know exactly how many jobs will be destroyed or disrupted by new technology.
Automation probably won’t kill jobs, but it’ll create more bad ones.
These changes will likely mean a decline in job security and standards of living for many, which in turn could lead to political dissatisfaction.
Schlogl and Sumner give an overview of proposed solutions to these challenges, but seem skeptical that any go far enough.
One class of solution they call “quasi-Luddite” — measures that try to stall or reverse the trend of automation.
These include taxes on goods made with robots (or taxes on the robots themselves) and regulations that make it difficult to automate existing jobs.
A related strategy is to reduce the cost of human labor, by driving down wages or cutting benefits, for example. »