When Robots Steal Our Jobs
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2015
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Technology has been replacing manufacturing jobs for years. Is the same about to happen to white-collar work? Will new faster, smarter computers start destroying more jobs than they create?
Technologists and economists are now arguing that we are approaching a turning point, where professional jobs are becoming automated, leaving less and less work for humans to do. David Baker investigates the evidence and asks what this means for society, the individual and equality. Producer: Charlotte McDonald.
Transcript
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| 0:40.0 | Technology has been replacing manual work for decades. |
| 0:44.0 | I'm David Baker and in this program I'll be asking |
| 0:48.0 | does it now have white collar jobs in its sights? |
| 0:57.0 | I'm on the docklands Light Railway in East London. Every weekday, a fleet of 48 of these trains vary up to 44,000 commuters an hour, |
| 1:03.0 | many of them traveling to and from the financial powerhouses of Canary Wharf. |
| 1:07.0 | The system has minimal delays and a good safety record, |
| 1:11.0 | and most noticeably, there are no drivers these trains are operated |
| 1:15.8 | by computers housed in a central control room technology has always destroyed jobs as |
| 1:21.6 | factory workers have known for decades but it's also |
| 1:24.3 | created new ones there are very few typesetters in Britain today for example but |
| 1:29.1 | plenty of website designers. Now, however, something different seems to be happening. Technologies becomes so good that |
| 1:40.6 | according to some researchers it's destroying jobs but not creating as many new ones. |
| 1:45.0 | And the jobs that it now has in its sights are those done by the people you can hear hurrying to their offices around us now. |
| 1:51.0 | Professional white collar workers whose careers may no longer be the |
| 1:55.8 | one-way ticket to wealth and security. In this program I'll be exploring whether |
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