Communications of the ACM
A Data-Driven Exploration of the Race between Human Labor and Machines in the 21st Century
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Anxiety about automation is prevalent in this era of rapid technological advances, especially in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotics. Accordingly, how human labor competes, or cooperates, with machines in performing a range of tasks (what we term "the race between human labor and machines") has attracted a great deal of attention among the public, policymakers, and researchers.14,15,18 While there have been persistent concerns about new technology and automation replacing human tasks at least since the Industrial Revolution,8 recent technological advances in executing sophisticated and complex tasks—enabled by a combinatorial innovation of new techniques and algorithms, advances in computational power, and exponential increases in data—differentiate the 21st century from previous ones.14
Key Insights
For instance, recent advances in autonomous self-driving cars demonstrate the way a wide range of human tasks that have been considered least susceptible to automation may no longer be safe from automation and computerization. Another case in point is human competition against machines, such as IBM's Watson on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" and DeepMind's AlphaGo in the board game go. Both cases imply that some tasks, such as pattern recognition and information processing, are being rapidly computerized. Furthermore, recent studies suggest that robotics also plays a role in automating manual tasks and decreasing employment of low-wage workers.3,22
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