Here’s one way humans may fight back against robots taking their jobs that doesn’t involve watching the latest series of “Black Mirror” on Netflix NFLX, -0.05% .

It’s a long shot, but a new study suggests how artificial intelligence could actually help American workers. As the use of artificial intelligence technology continues to grow and enriches companies, policy makers could move to redistribute that new wealth so that everyone benefits from AI, according to an analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University, distributed this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based research group.

“ ‘The more willing society is to support the necessary transition and to provide support to those who are left behind, the faster the pace of innovation that society can accommodate.’ ” — New research from Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University

“The more willing society is to support the necessary transition and to provide support to those who are left behind, the faster the pace of innovation that society can accommodate,” the researchers wrote, perhaps optimistically. One suggestion: Tax companies that replace humans with robots and lower the tax rates for companies that retain more people.

Another way to lessen the impact: Shorten the amount of time intellectual property can be protected with a patent to help redistribute wealth. And yet another suggestion: Creating public policies that value service-oriented jobs, including those in health, education and the military, giving them high pay and good working conditions.

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The researchers also explored the concept of the ‘ideal market’

A redistribution of wealth would naturally happen, if workers could first take out a special insurance plan that would protect them if their wages decline in the future due to AI. This, of course, would happen in an “ideal market,” the researchers add. In that world, winners — those whose wages don’t decline because of AI — would compensate the losers, by sharing the risk. As a result, technological advances would make everyone better off.

However, few workers know exactly how AI would impact them, so not everyone would insure themselves equally, they said. What’s more, people are living and working longer, so it’s difficult to write insurance contracts that last a lifetime. And the researchers acknowledge that those “ideal” conditions are unlikely to exist in the real world.

They looked at ‘trickle down’ alternatives that could help workers as artificial intelligence becomes more popular. Policy makers could determine a way to redistribute the “surplus” wealth that entrepreneurs create by making their own businesses more efficient. That would make technology beneficial for society, the researchers said. That compensation could come in the form of taxes or social welfare programs.

For those who want to avoid being replaced by robots, a college education will likely help. As MarketWatch previously reported, there’s an 83% chance that automation will replace a job that pays $20 per hour, according to a White House report released last year.

Automation allows workers to focus on more strategic tasks

Previous studies have suggested AI coping strategies, including encouraging workers to use AI to improve at their jobs, such as automating routine tasks and focusing more on strategic ones. Others have suggested that AI will help humans make breakthroughs in science, by processing and analyzing more information than ever before.

Last year, Microsoft MSFT, -1.24% co-founder Bill Gates said robots should free up labor “and give graduates an opportunity to focus on jobs that only let us do a better job of reaching out to the elderly, having smaller class sizes, helping kids with special needs. You know, all of those are things where human empathy and understanding are still very, very unique.”

The stakes are high. Some 800 million people around the world, including a third of the workforce in the U.S., might be out of jobs by 2030 because of automation, according to an eight-month study from the McKinsey Global Institute.

Some experts on AI still disagree about what its overall impact will be. One more optimistic take: AI could actually create 15 million new jobs in the U.S. in the next decade, according to Forrester Research, a market research company. But it could also kill 25 million jobs, they found. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has said he believes it could take a century for artificial technology to eliminate jobs in the U.S.

For those who don’t want to work in artificial intelligence, there are some “robot-proof” careers. They include composers and artists, nurse practitioners, home health aides, elder care specialists, child care workers, engineers, teachers and, finally, human resources executives, a report released earlier this month by careers firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas concluded.