A Darker Theme in Obama’s Farewell: Automation Can Divide Us
By Claire Cain Miller

Underneath the nostalgia and hope in President Obama’s farewell address Tuesday night was a darker theme: the struggle to help the people on the losing end of technological change.

“The next wave of economic dislocations won’t come from overseas,” Mr. Obama said. “It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good, middle-class jobs obsolete.”

Donald J. Trump has tended to blame trade, offshoring and immigration. Mr. Obama acknowledged those things have caused economic stress. But without mentioning Mr. Trump, he said they divert attention from the bigger culprit.

Economists agree that automation has played a far greater role in job loss, over the long run, than globalization. But few people want to stop technological progress. Indeed, the government wants to spur more of it. The question is how to help those that it hurts.

The inequality caused by automation is a main driver of cynicism and political polarization, Mr. Obama said. He connected it to the racial and geographic divides that have cleaved the country post-election.

It’s not just racial minorities and others like immigrants, the rural poor and transgender people who are struggling in society, he said, but also “the middle-aged white guy who, from the outside, may seem like he’s got advantages, but has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change.”

Technological change will soon be a problem for a much bigger group of people, if it isn’t already. Fifty-one percent of all the activities Americans do at work involve predictable physical work, data collection and data processing. These are all tasks that are highly susceptible to being automated, according to a report McKinsey published in July using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and O*Net to analyze the tasks that constitute 800 jobs.

Twenty-eight percent of work activities involve tasks that are less susceptible to automation but are still at risk, like unpredictable physical work or interacting with people. Just 21 percent are considered safe for now, because they require applying expertise to make decisions, do something creative or manage people.

The service sector, including health care and education jobs, is considered safest. Still, a large part of the service sector is food service, which McKinsey found to be the most threatened industry, even more than manufacturing. Seventy-three percent of food service tasks could be automated, it found.

In December, the White House released a report on automation, artificial intelligence and the economy, warning that the consequences could be dire: “The country risks leaving millions of Americans behind and losing its position as the global economic leader.”

No one knows how many people will be threatened, or how soon, the report said. It cited various researchers’ estimates that from 9 percent to 47 percent of jobs could be affected.

In the best case, it said, workers will have higher wages and more leisure time. In the worst, there will be “significantly more workers in need of assistance and retraining as their skills no longer match the demands of the job market.”

Technology delivers its benefits and harms in an unequal way. That explains why even though the economy is humming, it doesn’t feel like it for a large group of workers.

Education is the main solution the White House advocated. When the United States moved from an agrarian economy to an industrialized economy, it rapidly expanded high school education: By 1951, the average American had 6.2 more years of education than someone born 75 years earlier. The extra education enabled people to do new kinds of jobs, and explains 14 percent of the annual increases in labor productivity during that period, economists say.

Now the country faces a similar problem. Machines can do many low-skilled tasks, and American children, especially those from low-income and minority families, lag behind their peers in other countries educationally.

The White House proposed enrolling more 4-year-olds in preschool and making two years of community college free for students, as well as teaching more skills like computer science and critical thinking. For people who have already lost their jobs, it suggested expanding apprenticeships and retraining programs, on which the country spends half what it did 30 years ago.

Displaced workers also need extra government assistance, the report concluded. It suggested ideas like additional unemployment benefits for people who are in retraining programs or live in states hardest hit by job loss. It also suggested wage insurance for people who lose their jobs and have to take a new one that pays less. Someone who made $18.50 an hour working in manufacturing, for example, would take an $8 pay cut if he became a home health aide, one of the jobs that is growing most quickly.

President Obama, in his speech Tuesday, named some other policy ideas for dealing with the problem: stronger unions, an updated social safety net and a tax overhaul so that the people benefiting most from technology share some of their earnings.

The Trump administration probably won’t agree with many of those solutions. But the economic consequences of automation will be one of the biggest problems it faces.

紐約時報專欄/當心自動化的經濟後果

在美國總統歐巴馬充滿懷舊與希望的告別演說中，隱含了一個陰暗主題：對那些被科技變革淘汰的人民伸出援手。

歐巴馬說：「下一波經濟位移不會來自海外，而是來自自動化快速淘汰那些好的中產階級工作。」美國準總統川普喜歡將此歸因貿易、海外設廠與移民。歐巴馬承認這些因素造成經濟壓力，他沒點名川普，但認為這種說法是對問題焦點避重就輕。

經濟學家同意，長期而言，自動化在減少工作機會上扮演的角色遠甚於全球化。但很少人希望科技停止進步，政府甚至希望大力推動科技進步。問題在於，要如何幫助那些因此受傷害的人們。

科技變革很快就會對更多人造成問題，如果目前問題還沒出現的話。美國人工作中有51%活動屬於可預期的體力工作、資料收集與處理。麥肯錫顧問公司去年7月發表報告顯示，這些都是極易被自動化取代的活動。

工作活動中有28%較不易被自動化取代，但仍有相當風險，包括不可預期的體力工作，以及與人互動。僅有21%的活動被認為目前仍然安全，因為它們需要基於專業作出決策、工作需要創意、或是管理員工。

包括醫療與教育在內的服務業，被視為最安全的工作。然而，麥肯錫發現餐飲服務業是最受威脅的行業，程度超過製造業。報告發現，餐飲服務業作業有73%可以被自動化取代。

白宮12月發布一份有關自動化、人工智慧與經濟的報告，裡頭警告後果可能很悲慘，「美國冒著罔顧幾百萬美國人民的風險，失去作為世界經濟領導者的地位」。這份報告指出，沒人曉得有多少人或多快會受到威脅，報告並引述研究人員的預估，有9%至47%的工作機會將受到衝擊。

科技帶來的利弊並不對等，這能解釋儘管經濟景氣活絡，許多勞工階層卻沒有同等感受。

白宮主張教育是主要解決方法，包括讓更多幼兒加入學前教育，以及社區大學前兩年免費；對那些已經失業的人，擴大提供實習與再培訓計畫。

歐巴馬在告別演說中也提出其他構想，包括強化工會、改善社會安全福利網，以及改革租稅制度，讓那些從科技獲益的民眾付更多稅。川普新政府或許不會同意上述方案，但自動化的經濟後果，將是新政府面對的主要難題。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/upshot/in-obamas-farewell-a-warning-on-automations-perils.html

2017-01-20．經濟日報．A7．國際．編譯劉雲