they'll HELP the UK workforce, says Labour's Tom Watson
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The inevitable robot uprising won't cause mass unemployment across the UK, according to Tom Watson.
Labour's deputy leader is set to mark the final report of the Future of Work Commission today with a speech urging us all to "embrace an android".
He will claim that sensible government investment in automation will actually reverse the UK's economic decline and create as many new jobs as it destroys.
“It can sometimes feel like we are preparing for a world in which artificial intelligence, algorithms and automation, rather than human endeavour and hard work, will shape every aspect of our society and our economy," he is expected to say.
"That sounds like a frightening prospect. But it needn’t be.”
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Watson has been a co-chair of the commission, which has brought together professors from Oxford and Harvard as well as Nobel prize-winning economist Sir Christopher Pissarides. It has concluded that Britain's falling productivity, inequality and low wages are down to bad government decisions rather than robots and artificial intelligence.
"Mass technological unemployment is highly unlikely," the report concludes.
In fact, one of the recommendations from the commission will be to make artificial intelligence part of the national secondary school curriculum to help close the gap between low-skilled labour and high-skilled jobs.
It will also suggest that robots will handle the routine and the heavy lifting so that humans can focus on generating economic benefits.
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“That is liberating. So I suppose what I’m really saying is: robots can set us free. A former prime minister once famously said ‘hug a hoodie’. Today, I’m asking you to embrace an android,” Watson will say.
Helen Mountfield QC, who co-chaired the commission, said: “Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence don’t need to spell the end of work. But we cannot sit passively by letting technological change just happen.
“We need to decide what sort of future we want and make policy choices, design education and introduce a legal architecture to shape a future of good work which benefits everyone, in which the rewards of innovation are fairly shared.”
It has previously been predicted that has many as 600,000 British builders' jobs could be taken over by automation in the next 20 years.
There are currently around 2.2 million positions in the industry in the UK but as many as a third could be automated by 2040 in what has been called the "fourth industrial revolution".
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One of the hardest hit jobs will be bricklaying, where numbers are predicted to fall from 73,000 to just 4,300, said a report by engineering giant Mace in October.
By 2040 there will be just 15,500 carpenters and interior fitters, down from 260,000 now, and the number of labourers will slump from 127,000 to 7,500.
There may be just 6,500 painters and decorators in 20 years, compared with 110,000 now, the study said.
While machines may take away traditional jobs, they will also increase safety and speed up construction projects, researchers said.
The report added that the change will create new roles, such as computer programmers, and the building sector needed to adapt to these major changes or face a crisis.