David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee.

Automation and artificial intelligence are changing jobs across the United States.

This evolution is resulting in some manual tasks being eliminated. However, other jobs that require a higher level of expertise, specialty or creativity are being created, altered or transformed.

Educational attainment is a key differentiator, and workers who constantly update their skills will be able to adapt better to changes in the market.

Tennessee, however, is in the bottom quartile of states most susceptible to losing jobs to automation and AI.

This is happening in different industries, including manufacturing and low-skilled work in the fast-food industry or grocery stores.

Efforts have been made over the years to provide more and even free opportunities for Tennesseans to develop or upgrade their skills.

The question is, can enough workers keep up with new technologies and radically evolving careers to enjoy the benefits of a changing economy?

Tennessee rural areas are worse off than urban centers

New data that the nonpartisan research organization Brookings Institution released on Jan. 24 lays out the realities and risks of automation and AI, but also offers solutions and recommendations.

Brookings analyzed 381 metro areas and found that they could potentially lose between 39.1 percent (St. Mary's County, Maryland) and 56 percent (Dalton, Georgia) of jobs to automation.

The range in Tennessee is 46.3 percent (Memphis) to 51.3 percent (Morristown).

The Volunteer State’s four largest cities — Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga — are less at risk than more rural or smaller areas, like Morristown, Cleveland and the Kingston/Bristol area.

Rural broadband access still falls short. Moreover, the urban centers have residents with higher education levels, more work, and lots of creative, craft and entrepreneurial business opportunities.

However, even Tennessee's biggest cities are in the bottom third when compared with the 100 largest metro areas.

There is much work to be done.

Gov. Lee's priorities point to progress

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s recent announcement of his first major legislative priority revolving around technical and vocational education is a significant step in moving the needle.

"We have a changing workforce landscape in this country and certainly in this state," Lee said at the Tennessee Press Association's annual luncheon Thursday. "We need to create and adapt our education system to meet that changing need."

He is building upon the work of former Gov. Phil Bredesen, who laid down key groundwork in education, and former Gov. Bill Haslam, who launched the Tennessee Promise and TN Reconnect programs to provide free community college, respectively, to high school graduates and adults wanting to return to school.

In addition, Lee’s first executive order involved accelerating and increasing investments in economic development and opportunities in Tennessee's rural communities, works in tandem with his first priority.

“A lot of smaller metros inherently have challenges because they have lower education levels and less differentiated economies,” said Mark Muro, co-author of the Brookings report on automation and AI. “Rural places have been hit hard through the whole decade and are really struggling with making this decision.”

Muro said people who have a bachelor’s degree, for example, will likely be able to manage the changing work landscape.

Unfortunately, most people don’t have a bachelor's degree. The national figure is 30.9 percent, and in Tennessee, it’s 26.1 percent, according to 2017 census figures. Those figures are significantly lower in the African-American and Hispanic community or among low-income individuals.

Tennessee’s advantages as a low-tax, business-friendly state create immediate opportunities for people prepared to take them, be it for employers like Amazon, Ernst & Young and AllianceBernstein coming to Nashville, or for existing companies like General Motors or Volkswagen expanding their operations in Tennessee.

Those people include college or technical school graduates from many of the esteemed institutions in Tennessee, skilled professionals at other local companies who might be poached by new employers, and talent coming from out of state.

People who are not prepared, adequately trained or educated, or who do not know how to access these opportunities, however, are at a critical disadvantage.

Who is responsible for training workers?

Brookings makes five recommendations to help communities navigate through the changes. They revolve around helping workers adapt, grow and innovate:

Embrace growth and technology Promote constant learning mindset Facilitate smoother adjustment Reduce hardships for workers Mitigate local hardships

Kristin Sharp, director of the nonpartisan think tank New America’s initiative on work, workers and technology, said more data is needed on how successfully workers do to adapt to automation and AI, but retraining efforts have fallen short.

“There’s a lot of experimentation. Nobody’s cracked the code," she said.

“People would be willing to retrain if they knew what that would give them at the end of the program," she added.

Workers who are discouraged may fall out of the labor force or remain underemployed and vulnerable to future shifts in work.

Ralph Schulz, president and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, said there is a responsibility among the public and private sectors as well as educational institutions to point students in the right direction.

“The institutions have a responsibility to alter their curricula to where the opportunities are appearing,” he said. "Students have to have an awareness of the opportunities.

“We need to promote to people that they need to continue to invest in their institutions as well as for the state and institutions allowing them to have access."

As automation and artificial intelligence continue having an impact on work, employers, workers and educational institutions must be constantly adapting and investing in their existing and future talent.

They must urgently strive to create a more level playing field for people who want a good-paying, fulfilling job to help support themselves and their families.

The consequence will be an ever-accelerating income inequality gap that is detrimental to a healthy society.

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Call him at 615-259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.

Town hall

What: Tipping Point: Amazon and the Future of Nashville, hosted by Stand Up Nashville

When: 6-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 15

Where: East Magnet High School, 110 Gallatin Road, Nashville