Will rapidly evolving artificial intelligence technology take jobs away from people?
This year's white paper on the economy and public finance offers a detailed analysis of the anxiety felt by workers.
Instead of overly fearing AI, people should improve the abilities at their command and usher in a new era.
There is a possibility that duties long assumed by people will be taken over by machines and systems due to the spread of AI and other new technology, according to the white paper. Some reductions in employment must be accepted as a side effect of technological innovation.
Routine forms of work top the list of duties for which corporations have considered using AI as a substitute -- such as accounting, handling financial and tax matters and drawing up documents.
Meanwhile, some types of work are expected to increase in volume due to the spread of AI, including tasks requiring technical expertise, sales and marketing, as well as customer service. There seems to be a lot of room for people to continue playing an active role in the kinds of work in which expertise and interpersonal communication capabilities are required.
The white paper analyzes the situation, saying Japan has fallen behind other major nations in utilizing new technology and that there is a large amount of work involving routine tasks.
Based on this acknowledgment, the white paper states that it is important to develop personnel who can handle new technology or who have acquired skills that are difficult to replace with machines.
It is necessary to smoothly shift people engaged in clerical and other routine forms of work to duties in which professional knowledge and skills are required. It is indispensable to improve the quality of vocational training and reform labor practices that are rigid compared with those of the United States and European nations.
Invest in employees
The white paper has estimated that labor productivity will increase by more than 20 percent if companies increase investment in their employees through corporate training and other means. Corporate management should take it to heart that if companies carefully improve the abilities of employees, it will invigorate their firms.
It is also important for workers to make their own efforts in this respect.
Working adults who have retrained at universities or elsewhere have gained an increase of 100,000 yen in their annual income after two years and 160,000 yen after three years, according to the white paper.
When compared internationally, retraining is limited in Japan. This is regrettable.
Universities and other institutions should provide opportunities for practical and quality retraining. It is important for corporations to appropriately assess people who have improved their abilities through self-development, thereby enabling them to utilize their skills to gain promotions or change jobs.
Risks are involved in technological advancement. If companies are able to introduce machines and equipment at low costs, they tend to reduce employment and wages.
Reductions in worker incomes lead to a lack of brisk consumption. Expansion in demand will not progress as much as desired, making it even more difficult to achieve a virtuous economic circle.
Now is the time for the public and private sectors to join hands in working out a strategy for realizing sustainable growth in the age of AI technology.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 21, 2018)
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