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Bill Gates has used a speech this week, to warn that the labor market is about to change dramatically, and we aren’t ready for it.
Gates addressed the neoliberal economic think tank The American Enterprise Institute last week, and gave a stark pronouncement. In the next 20 years, many of our jobs will disappear, to be replaced by software automation software substitution (“bots” in tech slang).
Here’s what he said:
“Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses … it’s progressing. … Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. … 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.”
And Gates is not alone in his warnings, the red flags are all around us.
In January, the Economist ran a piece showing more than a dozen jobs where humans will be replaced by robots in the next 20 years. Among their number, telemarketers, accountants and retail workers.