Blog Post

AEIdeas

The robots are rising, but probably not as fast as you think. That is one of the take-aways from a lengthy new McKinsey Global Institute report, “Harnessing automation for a future that works.”

This is the headline finding: “While less than 5% of all occupations can be automated entirely using demonstrated technologies, about 60% of all occupations have at least 30% of constituent activities that could be automated. More occupations will change than will be automated away.”

Or as Michael Chui, one of the report’s authors, told the Wall Street Journal: “Given that we will need the machines working and the people working to get economic growth, we should be worrying about mass redeployment rather than mass unemployment.”

But if we are going to successfully “race with the machines” rather than against them — and ensure a world of higher productivity and gobs of good-paying jobs — there is a big role for policy. Right now. And that’s what politicians should be tweeting about, not reworking old trade deals. A key section from the report: