Half of the human race could be made unemployed by robots, scientist claims

More than half of the human race could be unemployed in 30 years time as job vacancies are filled by machines, a scientist has predicted.
Graham Brown pictured with 'Lucy' the Robot at the Mechanical Engineering Department at Leeds University....SH1002009b..21st October 2014 Picture by Simon HulmeGraham Brown pictured with 'Lucy' the Robot at the Mechanical Engineering Department at Leeds University....SH1002009b..21st October 2014 Picture by Simon Hulme
Graham Brown pictured with 'Lucy' the Robot at the Mechanical Engineering Department at Leeds University....SH1002009b..21st October 2014 Picture by Simon Hulme

A life of leisure could be the norm for a majority of people in decades to come, according to computer expert Moshe Vardi - but he warns that it may not be a bed of roses.

Speaking at a major conference in the US, he considered the social implications of a global economy with greater than 50 per cent unemployment.

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Professor Vardi, from Rice University in Houston, Texas, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): “I believe that society needs to confront this question before it is upon us: if machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do? Humanity is about to face perhaps its greatest challenge ever, which is finding meaning in life after the end of ‘in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’.”

Prof Vardi argued that the pace of progress in artificial intelligence was increasing, even as the same technology was eliminating growing numbers of middle-class “white collar” jobs and driving up income inequality. In November last year the Bank of England’s chief economist warned that up to 15 million jobs in the UK are at risk of being lost to robots. Andy Haldane said automation posed a risk to almost half of British employees and warned that a “third machine age” was set to widen the gap between rich and poor. Administrative, clerical and production tasks were most at threat, according to a Bank of England study.

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