AI and robots are displacing science and tech workers. The question is: How quickly?

While there is much current attention on technology displacing workers in the near future, this type of disruption is not new. There is a long history of technology altering the way things are produced and having significant impacts on employment. In 1900, for instance, 41 percent of the U.S. labor force was employed in agriculture. Thanks to the development of a broad range of agricultural technologies, by 2000 only 2 percent of the U.S. labor force worked in agriculture (see this study for a review). Automation has become increasingly common in U.S. manufacturing.