Artificial Intelligence can create art, detect early stage breast cancer and do accounting. So the idea that new technology might lead to fear of losing your job is not that crazy a thought. But how realistic is the fear? And how does that fear affect society? Professor of International Economics André van Hoorn looks into it.
“Technological developments are of all time, and so are the job losses that come with them. For example, does anyone actually know a typesetter or a lamp lighter anymore? But the extinction of these occupations hasn’t led to permanent unemployment. In fact, new jobs emerge all the time, like ux developer or influencer. They didn’t exist a hundred years ago.”
The idea that current technological developments, like Artificial Intelligence, will also lead to the creation of new jobs would be entirely logical. Fears about job losses would thus be unfounded. “‘However, it remains to be seen whether the jobs lost will be replaced as readily as with other technological developments,” says van Hoorn. For the first time ever, we are able to substitute both physical and cognitive skills - something long reserved for people.”
