Bank of England chief economist warns on AI jobs threat

Robot hand Image copyright Getty Images

The chief economist of the Bank of England has warned that the UK will need a skills revolution to avoid "large swathes" of people becoming "technologically unemployed" as artificial intelligence makes many jobs obsolete.

Andy Haldane said the possible disruption of what is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution could be "on a much greater scale" than anything felt during the First Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era.

He said that he had seen a widespread "hollowing out" of the jobs market, rising inequality, social tension and many people struggling to make a living.

It was important to learn the "lessons of history", he argued, and ensure that people were given the training to take advantage of the new jobs that would become available.


'Dark side'

Mr Haldane's points were echoed by the new head of the government's advisory council on artificial intelligence, who also warned there was a "huge risk" of people being left behind as computers and robots changed the world of work.

Tabitha Goldstaub, chair of the newly formed Artificial Intelligence Council, said that the challenge was ensuring that people were ready for change and that the focus was on creating the new jobs of the future to replace those that would disappear.

"Each of those [industrial revolutions] had a wrenching and lengthy impact on the jobs market, on the lives and livelihoods of large swathes of society," Mr Haldane told me for the Today Programme.




"That hollowing out is going to be potentially on a much greater scale in the future, when we have machines both thinking and doing - replacing both the cognitive and the technical skills of humans."

Image copyright Getty Images

Mr Haldane said that job losses would be compensated for by the creation of new jobs as a "new technological wave" broke over society.

"That is a much harder number to begin to estimate or guesstimate," he said.




Mr Haldane said that jobs that focused on skills of human interaction, face-to-face conversation and negotiation would be likely to flourish.

Simple manual jobs would be more at risk.


Ms Goldstaub said there were great opportunities ahead as well as significant challenges.

"What we have to think about is the time in which this change is happening, and it is definitely happening quicker than ever before," she said.

"The challenge we have now is ensuring our workforce is ready for that change.


"There is a hopeful view [based] on the fact that a lot of these jobs [that disappear] are boring, mundane, unsafe, drudgery - there could be some element of liberation from some of these jobs and a move towards a brighter world.

"Now that's not going to be an easy journey, but I do believe there is hope at the end of it all."

BBC Radio 4's Today Programme is running a series on the future of work this week

More on this story