Don’t Expect Robots to Take Everyone’s Job

How many jobs are vulnerable to automation? Plenty of people ask that question, and plenty of people try to give numerical answers. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that about 46 percent of jobs have a better-than-even chance of being automated. A 2016 study by Citigroup Inc. and the University of Oxford reported that 57 percent of jobs were at high risk of automation, although a 2013 paper by two of the same researchers predicted 47 percent. A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report comes up with somewhat lower numbers, though it varies by country. In 2016, the World Economic Forum report came up with a number just less than 40 percent for the U.S. There are many other examples.

These are large numbers. Even more troubling, they’re all fairly similar — each of the studies seems to come to the conclusion that roughly half of all jobs are very vulnerable to automation. But don’t panic — nobody really knows how many jobs will be replaced by robots, or even what it means to be replaced.