If you ask experts robots are going to be claiming a lot of human jobs in the future. However, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau believes he has a plan to deal with this eventuality, in a way that doesn’t leave hordes of people lining up at the unemployment office.
According to guys like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking, everything from factories to taxis to even some office jobs will eventually be fully automated, putting a lot of people out of business. Each has their own idea of a solution — Bill gates even suggested taxing factory robots that snag jobs belonging to humans.
Now, Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau details his own plans for dealing with an impending robotics-fuelled job shortage in the country. He posted his answer on knowledge-sharing website Quora, in response to a question asking what governments should do to prepare for the technological automation of human jobs.
“We know that the job market is changing, and instead of resisting in vain, we’re focused on funding research and innovation, like in AI and quantum computing, that’ll help lead the change here in Canada,” Trudeau wrote. “And while we do that, we’re preparing Canadians to find good jobs through investments in education and training.”
The prime minister also answered a few other questions on the site, ranging from feminism to his stance on artificial intelligence research.
In particular, Trudeau’s plan is similar to Bill Gates’ suggestion for the US; instead of taxing robots, he advocates setting up an “Employment Insurance” fund in Canada which would support people pushed out of a job by computer and allow them to train themselves in a different capacity.
Reuters
To be clear, a number of major countries are contemplating their plan of action for when the inevitable job shortage hits. Both AI research and robotics are progressing at an exponential rate, making us likely to see robots taking human jobs within the next 10 years. The economic burden it would place on a country could be insurmountable if not adequately prepared for.
The one redeeming factor is that, where robots would take a lot of existing jobs, it would also open up a space for new jobs in the tech and manufacturing industry, where everything from software technicians, to maintenance experts, and more would be needed to keep the robots running smoothly.
You can read Trudeau’s entire response to the question here.