Educators and employers must understand the potential impact of ‘technological unemployment’ on workers and wider society, argues Rotterdam School of Management’s Stefano Puntoni
I challenge you to think about the future of work without talking about robots or AI. Almost impossible, right? It’s indisputable that these emerging technologies will play a significant role in shaping the way we work and live our lives. In fact, we’ve seen plenty of predictions that robots are about to put everyone, from factory workers to journalists, out of a job, with ‘white-collar’ work now also deemed vulnerable to automation.
To explore how people feel about ‘technological unemployment’, I polled workers on their attitudes to robotic replacement, together with Armin Granulo and Christoph Fuchs from TUM School
of Management, Technical University of Munich (TUM).
We asked 300 people whether they would prefer it if an existing member of staff was replaced by a robot or a human. Two thirds of those polled said they favoured having a human replacement as their new colleague. However, when the same choice was applied to their own job, approximately 60% said they would rather lose their job to a robot.
‘Contradictory’ attitudes to automation
On further inspection, we found that people experience more negative emotions when they are replaced in a job by another person. Being replaced by a human worker makes people draw negative comparisons, undermining their self-worth and confidence. It’s all too easy to compare yourself to another person. By contrast, being replaced by a robot is easier for a person to cope with, because it is less damaging to his or her self-esteem to feel that they are a victim of inexorable technological progress, rather than simply less effective than another person.
The former feels less personal, and, according to our research, less psychologically painful. However, the research also presents us with ‘contradictory’ attitudes to automation. While our replacement by robots should be considered the greater threat to our economic future, it seems that the initial resistance to this is weaker than replacement by other people.
Ultimately, however, replacing human workers with technology has a unique psychological effect: people recognise that the skills gap between themselves and robots might be permanent – and that this indicates obsolescence.
So, while comparing one’s abilities to a robot, as opposed to comparing them with another human, might affect a person’s self-worth less in the short term, robotic replacement is perceived as more threatening to their economic situation in the long run.
Addressing the fallout
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, 1.5 million people in England are at ‘high risk’ of losing their jobs to intelligent machines. This means Business Schools and employers should be developing training programmes to cope with the fallout of being replaced.
Governments and policymakers, in particular, should already be discussing strategies to support workers who stand to be displaced by technology, and I hope our research encourages further exploration of the psychological consequences of technological unemployment well before the related technological progress starts to disrupt specific jobs and occupations.
Business Schools and universities would also benefit from targeting resources towards upskilling and retraining their students in readiness for the coming changes to the world of work. Crucially, the business education system needs to focus more on training students for roles that are complementary to AI, including programming and data analysis.
While we are starting to see more Business Schools offering educational products in this space, there is still a lot more work to be done in the sector to ensure that our undergraduate and post-graduate students have jobs –
not just when they leave university, but also 10 years from now. Beyond technical skills, education needs to emphasise ‘human skills’, such as goal setting, reasoning, creativity and leadership.
Threats to psychological wellbeing
As more and more jobs begin to be affected by automation, exploring the unique psychological responses to technological unemployment is becoming increasingly important.
AI will change our world, both inside and outside the workplace. Rather than focusing on the fear surrounding automation, businesses should instead embrace emerging technologies to ensure they implement systems that enhance and complement human intelligence.
Technological progress is expected to affect millions of workers across a wide variety of occupations over the coming decades. It is, therefore, also important for the stability of society that we understand the potential threats to the psychological wellbeing of affected workers, and consider how this transition will affect their long-term economic prospects.
Stefano Puntoni is a Professor of Marketing at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).
