question: Why are people suddenly focused on automation replacing jobs?
comment: If you’re aware of the spinning Jenny you must surely be aware of Luddites. The fear of automation replacing workers never went away.
passages: Section::::History.:21st century.:Policy.
  
  In 2017, South Korea became the most automated country on earth with one robot for every 19 employed humans. This caused the government to consider changing the tax laws to hinder future automation increases.
  
  Section::::Solutions.
  
  Section::::Solutions.:Preventing net job losses.
  
  Section::::Solutions.:Preventing net job losses.:Banning/refusing innovation.
   The ongoing impact of technological unemployment due to automation and computerization on job employment is massive: the rate of jobs disappearing—due to machines replacing them—is expected to escalate. Automation alters the number of jobs and their skills demands of industries. As of 2019, the manufacturing sectors of first world nations' production output was doubled when compared to 1984 output; but are now produced with one-third fewer workers and at significantly reduced operating costs. Half of all jobs with requirements less than a bachelor's degree are currently in the process of being replaced with partial- or full-automation.
   Former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard economics professor Lawrence Summers stated in 2014 that he no longer believed automation would always create new jobs and that "This isn't some hypothetical future possibility. This is something that's emerging before us right now." Summers noted that already, more labor sectors were losing jobs than creating new ones. While himself doubtful about technological unemployment, professor Mark MacCarthy stated in the fall of 2014 that it is now the "prevailing opinion" that the era of technological unemployment has arrived.
   Matt Miller wrote in January 2013 that this automation may have profound policy implications. If robots replace a vast number of workers, wage income may not be sufficient to support the middle class. More and more wealth will be concentrated in the hands of capital (e.g., those who make and own the robots doing the work). This could require significant changes in tax and redistribution policies on a massive scale. During August 2011, Taiwan manufacturing company Foxconn announced that it would be using up to one million robots to replace human laborers.
   Based on a formula by Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at Toulouse 1 University, the demand for unskilled human capital declines at a slower rate than the demand for skilled human capital increases. In the long run and for society as a whole it has led to cheaper products, lower average work hours, and new industries forming (i.e., robotics industries, computer industries, design industries). These new industries provide many high salary skill-based jobs to the economy. By 2030, between 3 and 14 percent of the global workforce will be forced to switch job categories due to automation eliminating jobs in an entire sector. While the number of jobs lost to automation is often offset by jobs gained from technological advances, the same type of job loss is not the same one replaced and that leading to increasing unemployment in the lower-middle class. This occurs largely in the US and developed countries where technological advances contribute to higher demand for highly skilled labor but demand for middle-wage labor continues to fall. Economists call this trend “income polarization” where unskilled labor wages are driven down and skilled labor is driven up and it is predicted to continue in developed economies.
   There are more women in the workforce, more employees of other nationalities, increased participation from indigenous people and the average age of employees is increasing. These trends are forcing employers to rethink how they employ and manage staff and how they respond to employee interests and demands.
  
  Section::::Drivers.:Fuel and energy costs.
  
  The costs of the energy needed to commute, live and work are increasing rapidly. Urban forms are expected to change as a result.
  
  Section::::Benefits.
   Experts disagree on how strong impact automation technologies will have on the workforce. Some warn of staggering unemployment, but others point out that technology may even create new job categories that will employ these displaced workers. A third group argues that computers will have little effect on employment.
  
  Section::::Effect of AI in the Manufacturing Industry.:Decreased Work Force.
  
  In 2014, Google, valued at $370 billion, had only 55,000 employees which is just a tenth of the size of AT&T's workforce in the 1960's.
  
  Section::::Effect of AI in the Manufacturing Industry.:Current Use.
   The traditional consensus among economists has been that technological progress does not cause long-term unemployment. However, recent innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will become obsolete, leaving people in various sectors without jobs to earn a living, leading to an economic crisis. Many small and medium size businesses may also be driven out of business if they won't be able to afford or licence the latest robotic and AI technology, and may need to focus on areas or services that cannot easily be replaced for continued viability in the face of such technology.
   Some analysts such as Martin Ford, author of "The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future", argue that as information technology advances, robots and other forms of automation will ultimately result in significant unemployment as machines and software begin to match and exceed the capability of workers to perform most routine jobs.
   In addition, robots are beginning to replace the human work force. There is growing unemployment and neo-Luddite group called "The Sons of Ned" organizes demonstrations and commits acts of violence. In her New York Times review, Janet Maslin pointed out that René Descartes’s famous statement Cogito, ergo sum "comes up repeatedly as a matter of crucial important in a world where artificial intelligence grows more powerful every day."
  
  Section::::Characters.
   Robotics is an essential component in many modern manufacturing environments. As factories increase their use of robots, the number of robotics–related jobs grow and have been observed to be steadily rising. The employment of robots in industries has increased productivity and efficiency savings and is typically seen as a long term investment for benefactors. A paper by Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey found that 47 per cent of US jobs are at risk to automation "over some unspecified number of years". These claims have been criticized on the ground that social policy, not AI, causes unemployment.
  
  Section::::Occupational safety and health implications.
   The 21st century has seen a variety of skilled tasks partially taken over by machines, including translation, legal research and even low level journalism. Care work, entertainment, and other tasks requiring empathy, previously thought safe from automation, have also begun to be performed by robots.
   In some ways, the Digital Agriculture Revolution follows patterns of previous agricultural revolutions. Scholars forecast a further shift away from labor, a slight shift away from capital, and intensified use of human capital — continuing the trend the British Agricultural Revolution started. Also, many predict that social backlash — possibly around the use of artificial intelligence or robots — will arise with the fourth revolution. Since controversy accompanies every societal transformation, the Digital Agricultural Revolution isn’t new in that respect.
   Concerns have included evidence showing worldwide falls in employment across sectors such as manufacturing; falls in pay for low and medium skilled workers stretching back several decades even as productivity continues to rise; the increase in often precarious platform mediated employment; and the occurrence of "jobless recoveries" after recent recessions. The 21st century has seen a variety of skilled tasks partially taken over by machines, including translation, legal research and even low level journalism. Care work, entertainment, and other tasks requiring empathy, previously thought safe from automation, have also begun to be performed by robots.
   of business processes were subject to automation. A November 2017 report by the McKinsey Global Institute that analyzed around 800 occupations in 46 countries estimated that between 400 million and 800 million jobs could be lost due to robotic automation by 2030. It estimated that jobs were more at risk in developed countries than developing countries due to a greater availability of capital to invest in automation. Job losses and downward mobility blamed on automation has been cited as one of many factors in the resurgence of nationalist and protectionist politics in the US, UK and France, among other countries.
   BULLET::::- 20 October – IBM shifts the goal for quantum supremacy by demonstrating that classical computers can simulate larger quantum systems than previously thought, and uses a supercomputer to simulate up to 56 qubits.
  
  BULLET::::- 25 October
  
  BULLET::::- An improved version of the genetic engineering technique CRISPR is published in the journals "Science" and "Nature".
  
  BULLET::::- In a report, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the loss of tens of thousands of US manufacturing jobs, due to the effects of artificial intelligence by 2026, but at the same time estimates growth in fields like software engineering.
   The relationship between automation and employment is complicated. While automation eliminates old jobs, it also creates new jobs through micro-economic and macro-economic effects. Unlike previous waves of automation, many middle-class jobs may be eliminated by artificial intelligence; "The Economist" states that "the worry that AI could do to white-collar jobs what steam power did to blue-collar ones during the Industrial Revolution" is "worth taking seriously". Subjective estimates of the risk vary widely; for example, Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey estimate 47% of U.S. jobs are at "high risk" of potential automation, while an OECD report classifies only 9% of U.S. jobs as "high risk". Jobs at extreme risk range from paralegals to fast food cooks, while job demand is likely to increase for care-related professions ranging from personal healthcare to the clergy. Author Martin Ford and others go further and argue that a large number of jobs are routine, repetitive and (to an AI) predictable; Ford warns that these jobs may be automated in the next couple of decades, and that many of the new jobs may not be "accessible to people with average capability", even with retraining. Economists point out that in the past technology has tended to increase rather than reduce total employment, but acknowledge that "we're in uncharted territory" with AI.
   In 2015, and continuing into 2016, the push for a $15/hour minimum wage among many minimum wage earners has increased fears among economists that increasing the minimum wage will only lead to jobs being “techsourced”, automated, or eliminated entirely. Minimum wage jobs are not the only jobs at risk for being techsourced. In Belgium two hospitals have employed robots as receptionists to offer directions and assist patients, jobs that previously would have been filled by humans.
   General public surveys have often found an expectation that automation would impact jobs widely, but not the jobs held by those particular people surveyed.
  
  Section::::History.:21st century.:Studies.
   The Council of Economic Advisers, a US government agency tasked with providing economic research for the White House, in the 2016 Economic Report of the President, used the data from the Frey and Osborne study to estimate that 83% of jobs with an hourly wage below $20, 31% of jobs with an hourly wage between $20 and $40, and 4% of jobs with an hourly wage above $40 were at risk of automation. A 2016 study by Ryerson University found that 42% of jobs in Canada were at risk of automation, dividing them into two categories - "high risk" jobs and "low risk" jobs. High risk jobs were mainly lower-income jobs that required lower education levels than average. Low risk jobs were on average more skilled positions. The report found a 70% chance that high risk jobs and a 30% chance that low risk jobs would be affected by automation in the next 10–20 years. A 2017 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that up to 38% of jobs in the US, 35% of jobs in Germany, 30% of jobs in the UK, and 21% of jobs in Japan were at high risk of being automated by the early 2030s. A 2017 study by Ball State University found about half of American jobs were at risk of automation, many of them low-income jobs. A September 2017 report by McKinsey & Company found that as of 2015, 478 billion out of 749 billion working hours per year dedicated to manufacturing, or $2.7 trillion out of $5.1 trillion in labor, were already automatable. In low-skill areas, 82% of labor in apparel goods, 80% of agriculture processing, 76% of food manufacturing, and 60% of beverage manufacturing were subject to automation. In mid-skill areas, 72% of basic materials production and 70% of furniture manufacturing was automatable. In high-skill areas, 52% of aerospace and defense labor and 50% of advanced electronics labor could be automated. In October 2017, a survey of information technology decision makers in the US and UK found that a majority believed that most business processes could be automated by 2022. On average, they said that 59%
   A 2018 Brookings Institution study that analyzed 28 industries in 18 OECD countries from 1970 to 2018 found that automation was responsible for holding down wages. Although it concluded that automation did not reduce the overall number of jobs available and even increased them, it found that from the 1970s to the 2010s, it had reduced the share of human labor in the value added to the work, and thus had helped to slow wage growth. In April 2018, Adair Turner, former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority and head of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, stated that it would already be possible to automate 50% of jobs with current technology, and that it will be possible to automate all jobs by 2060.
   First, because of recent technological advances, an increasing number of workers are losing their jobs. Yet, scientific evidence fails to clearly demonstrate that technology has displaced so many workers that it has created more problems than it has solved. Indeed, automation threatens repetitive jobs but higher-end jobs are still necessary because they complement technology and manual jobs that "requires flexibility judgment and common sense" remain hard to replace with machines. Second, studies have not shown clear links between recent technology advances and the wage trends of the last decades.
   Section::::Microwork.
  
  The development of micro-working platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk created new forms of digital labor. These platforms make use of low-wage employees in order to accomplish tasks that cannot or cannot yet be performed by a computer. Micro-working platforms are often used in the field of machine learning, for AI training or AI verification.
   BULLET::::- As more and more processes become automated, there are fewer remaining non-automated processes. This is an example of the exhaustion of opportunities. New technological paradigms may, however, set new limits that surpass the previous limits.
  
  Section::::Automation tools.:Current limitations.
   The 19th-century Industrial Revolution was an all-encompassing societal transformation, from technology and culture to the economy. The changes caused by industrialisation required the principles of society to be redesigned. Engels' pause was accompanied by major changes in the social-security and party systems, elementary schools, urban planning, public transport and many other areas of society. It has been argued that a similar transformation is underway in industrialised Western nations, where digitisation and robotisation are transforming society. In the Western world, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, the 2010s may be seen as the beginning of a similar "pause" in which the position of workers and the capacity of current systems to maintain the development of society are (at least temporarily) weakened.
  
presuppositions: People are suddenly worried about automation taking jobs from humans.
corrections: People have always been worried about automation taking jobs from humans. 
raw_presuppositions: People are suddenly worried about automation taking jobs from humans. People are suddenly worried about automation replacing jobs.
raw_corrections: People have always been worried about automation taking jobs from humans.  People have always been worried about automation replacing jobs since the Luddites.