This week, scientists and economic advisers to President Obama released a report on artificial intelligence, including the effects of automation on the US job market and economy. While the report notes the significant potential for wealth gains from increased productivity due to AI, it also warns of threats to existing jobs and an exacerbation of the wage inequality between lower-skilled, less-educated workers and those with higher skills.

In recent decades, automation has already claimed occupations such as those of switchboard operators, filing clerks, travel agents, and assembly line workers, and it is now on the cusp of replacing driving-related occupations such as taxi and Uber drivers. Automation will probably move into the trucking industry within a decade (3.8 million US jobs are related to driving). Some fast food restaurants are also experimenting with kiosks and automated ordering systems.

Estimates vary for how quickly automation will disrupt the US job market. The report cites two different attempts to predict the rate of automation. Optimistically, researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that many occupations are likely to change as some of their associated tasks become automated but not go away entirely. They estimate that only 9 percent of jobs are at risk in the next decade or two. However a separate analysis by Carl Frey and Michael Osbourne, which asked a panel of experts on AI to classify occupations by how likely automation would be to replace them, found that 47 percent of US jobs are at risk.

"If these estimates of threatened jobs translate into job displacement, millions of Americans will have their livelihoods significantly altered and potentially face considerable economic challenges in the short- and medium-term," the report states.

Both of these studies of jobs at risk due to automation, however, agreed that lower-paying jobs are at the highest risk. The study by Frey and Osbourne, for example, found that 83 percent of jobs paying $20 or less an hour would be pressured by AI, compared to just 4 percent of jobs paying $40 an hour or more. "If labor productivity increases do not translate into wage increases, then the large economic gains brought about by AI could accrue to a select few," the report says. "Instead of broadly shared prosperity for workers and consumers, this might push towards reduced competition and increased wealth inequality."

The critical question that researchers cannot answer is whether job growth, which traditionally has offset the loss of 6 percent of US jobs every quarter due to downsizing or closing businesses, can likewise absorb losses due to automation. Anticipating a potential wave of job losses due to automation, the report advocates strategies to educate and prepare new workers, assist those who lose jobs, and take steps to mitigate increased income inequality.