The uniqueness of human labour is at question in times of smart technologies. The 250 years-old discussion on technological unemployment reawakens. Prominently, Frey and Osborne (2017) estimated that half of US employment will be automated by algorithms within the next 20 years. Other follow-up studies conclude that only a small fraction of workers will be replaced by digital technologies. The main contribution of our work is to show that the diversity of previous findings regarding the degree of job automation is, to a large extent, driven by model selection and not by controlling for personal characteristics or tasks. For our case study, we consult experts in machine learning and industry professionals on the susceptibility to digital technologies in the Austrian labour market. Our results indicate that, while clerical computer-based routine jobs are likely to change in the next decade, professional activities, such as the processing of complex information, are less prone to digital change.
翻译:人类劳动的独特性在智能技术时代是值得怀疑的。关于技术失业的250年之久的讨论重新引起人们的注意。著名的是,Frey和Osborne(2017年)(2017年)估计,美国一半的就业将在未来20年内通过算法实现自动化。其他后续研究的结论是,只有一小部分工人将被数字技术所取代。我们工作的主要贡献是表明,以前关于工作自动化程度的调查结果的多样性在很大程度上是由模式选择驱动的,而不是通过控制个人特点或任务。关于我们的案例研究,我们咨询机器学习专家和工业专业人员了解奥地利劳动力市场对数字技术的易感性。我们的结果表明,尽管基于计算机的日常工作在未来十年中可能会发生变化,但诸如复杂信息处理等专业活动却不太容易受到数字变化的影响。