Jobs changing with Artificial Intelligence but no mass unemployment expected: UN labour expert

Rise of frontier technologies like Artificial Intelligence has caused fears of robots taking over blue-collar jobs, but a UN expert says mass unemployment is not expected as humans still have the upper hand given their creative abilities. Ekkehard Ernst, Chief of Macro-economic policies and job unit at the UN International Labour Organization (ILO), says the manufacturing sector does not stand to profit most from AI, at least not in developed countries, and will not suffer the forecast demise. The jobs more likely to be impacted are in service sectors such as construction, health care and business. "It is not so much about losing jobs but about how jobs are being transformed and employees in these sectors will add new tasks to their profile while being supported by computers and robots in others," Ernst said. The type of tasks that are being replaced by AI algorithms are routine, repetitive tasks that take a lot of time and can be more easily and more effectively performed by machines and by robots – leaving people to focus on interpersonal, social, emotional skills.