Economists may be underestimating the impact on labor markets of increasing automation and the rise of artificial intelligence, according to a post published on the Bank of England’s staff blog on Wednesday.

“The potential for simultaneous and rapid disruption, coupled with the breadth of human functions that AI might replicate, may have profound implications for labor markets,” BOE regional agents Mauricio Armellini and Tim Pike wrote in the Bank Underground post. “Economists should seriously consider the possibility that millions of people may be at risk of unemployment, should these technologies be widely adopted.”

Robots and intelligent machines threaten to replace workers in industries from finance to retail to haulage, with BOE Chief Economist Andrew Haldane estimating in 2015 that 15 million British jobs and 80 million in the U.S. could be lost to automation. Past periods of technological upheaval, such as the industrial revolution, may not be a useful guide as the pace of change was slower, giving society longer to mitigate the potential consequences of increasing job displacement and inequality, according to Armellini and Pike.

“Economists looking at previous industrial revolutions observe that none of these risks have transpired,” they wrote. “However, this possibly underestimates the very different nature of the technological advances currently in progress, in terms of their much broader industrial and occupational applications and their speed of diffusion.”

“It would be a mistake, therefore, to dismiss the risks associated with these new technologies too lightly,” they said.

David Fuller's view

It is easy to overlook the speed of technological innovation which is occurring.  After all, we have not experienced it previously and we have also lived through eight difficult years of slow GDP growth due to the severe credit crisis recession commencing in 2008.

Nevertheless, just consider for a moment the dramatic technological changes that you have witnessed and often benefited from over the last decade.  Consider just three of many examples which may be personal to you: 1) changes in your mobile phone over the last decade; 2) improvements in your computer software; 3) the advanced technology in your car if you purchased a new one in the last year or two.

Think how few of the technologies which you take for granted today were not available only twenty years ago.  Ten years from now the changes will be even more dramatic because we are living in an era of accelerating technological innovation, which will not end because we run out of new ideas. 

Yes, it will include many more robots.  However, very few of them will have visually human characteristics.  The big robots will be ever smarter industrial machines.  Many others will be miniature and all but invisible.  Most of these will be in the form of smart, fast chips or processors in computers and also larger machines.  There is no limit to their usefulness.