The Robots Are Coming!: The Future of Jobs in the Age of Automation

by Andres Oppenheimer, Ezra E. Fitz (Translator)

Overview

Staying true to his trademark journalistic approach, Andrés Oppenheimer takes his readers on yet another journey, this time across the globe, in a thought-provoking search to understand what the future holds for today's jobs in the foreseeable age of automation.

The Robots Are Coming! centers around the issue of jobs and their future in the context of rapid automation and the growth of online products and services. As two of Oppenheimer's interviewees — both experts in technology and economics from Oxford University — indicate, forty-seven percent of existing jobs are at risk of becoming automated or rendered obsolete by other technological changes in the next twenty years. Oppenheimer examines current changes in several fields, including the food business, legal work, banking, and medicine, speaking with experts in the field, and citing articles and literature on automation in various areas of the workforce. He contrasts the perspectives of "techno-optimists" with those of "techno-negativists" and generally attempts to find a middle ground between an alarmist vision of the future, and one that is too uncritical. A self-described "cautious optimist", Oppenheimer believes that technology will not create massive unemployment, but rather will drastically change what work looks like.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525565000
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/30/2019
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	1,097,898
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Andrés Oppenheimer is editor and syndicated foreign affairs columnist with The Miami Herald, anchor of Oppenheimer Presenta on CNN En Español, and author of seven books. Oppenheimer is the co-winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize as a member of The Miami Herald team that uncovered the Iran-Contra scandal. He won the Inter-American Press Association Award twice (1989 and 1994) and the 1997 award of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He is also the winner of the 1993 Ortega y Gasset Award of Spain's daily El País and the 1998 Maria Moors Cabot Prize of Columbia University.

Table of Contents

Prologue 3

1 A Jobless World? 9

2 They're Coining for Journalists!: The Future of the Media 77

3 They're Coming for Service Workers!: The Future of Restaurants, Supermarkets, and Retail Stores 114

4 They're Coming for Bankers!: The Future of Banking 145

5 They're Coming for Lawyers!: The Future of Law, Accounting, and Insurance Firms 173

6 They're Coming for Doctors!: The Future of Health Care 200

7 They're Coming for Teachers!: The Future of Education 231

8 They're Coming for Factory Workers!: The Future of Transportation and Manufacturing 264

9 They're Coming for Entertainers!: The Future of the Acting, Music, Sports, and Leisure Industries 298

10 The Jobs of the Future 333

Epilogue: The Top Ten Job Fields of the Future 367

Acknowledgments 381

Notes 383

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2018
Miami Herald columnist Oppenheimer offers a breezy, superficial survey of trends in automation that are expected to radically transform the workplace in coming decades. Oppenheimer traveled around the world to see for himself how autonomous devices have already begun to assume roles traditionally held by people, such as the robots in Japan who checked him into a hotel, and greeted him when he entered a bank. While he ends up asserting that the “world will continue getting better,” despite some “turbulent times,” Oppenheimer glosses over reasons to doubt that optimism; for example, he minimizes the potential for large-scale social disruptions when entire professions, such as truck driving, are eliminated, with no obvious or easy replacement jobs. And he also downplays the limits of some advances, lauding massive open online courses, or MOOCs, without noting that many who enroll never finish them. Sweeping generalizations (he writes that many Asian countries have a “family culture of education... that simply doesn’t exist in many Western nations”) and factual sloppiness (Carrie Fisher didn’t have to be digitally recreated for Star Wars: Rogue One because of her death, which occurred after that film’s release) also lessen the book’s credibility. The result is a readable but less than essential addition to the many volumes already available on this topic. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A must read for those who fear their jobs may be threatened by robots or A.I., The Robots Are Coming! presents a realistic picture of the fantastic opportunities for those who start preparing themselves now!"
—Peter H. Diamandis, Executive Founder of Singularity University, Founder & Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation and author of Abundance and Bold

"If you want to understand the future of jobs, read The Robots Are Coming! The detailed and brilliant reportage of Andres Oppenheimer provides an eye-opening account of the brave new world of work that awaits us. It’s not just truck drivers and retail clerks who are at risk, professionals like lawyers, doctors and high-tech engineers, all of them really, need to get ready for what’s coming."
—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class

"This is by far the best book on the topic. Rather than sensationalizing or downplaying the coming technological changes, Andres has articulated them in a way that almost anyone can understand. And he provides a very sensible guide to the jobs of the future."
—Vivek Wadhwa, Distinguished Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley

"With the investigational rigor of a seasoned journalist and the practical but scholarly approach of a public intellectual, Oppenheimer explores the future of work in the age of automation through real stories and thoughtful analysis. A must read for anyone thinking about the future - all of us, and a clarion call for Latin America."
—Joi Ito, Head of MIT Media Lab

"A keen assessment of the future of work amid sweeping advances in technological automation. . . . A promising, terrifying, and cautionary exploration of the "unstoppable" rise of automation."
—Kirkus Reviews

"In a time of accelerating innovation, The Robots Are Coming! is an essrntail guide — and a fascinating ride — through the transformation of the workplace. In his timely and vivid account, Andres helps us navigate the future world of work. Everyone should read it."
—Carl Frey, Co-Director of Oxford University's Programme on Technology & Employment
Distinguished Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley

"Oppenheimer occupies a unique place in the press of the Americas. His journalistic works set the agenda for the political debate." 
—Le Monde

"With the welcome arrival of The Robots Are Coming, I’m delighted to have Andres Oppenheimer as a fellow member of the AI Optimists Club. It can feel a little lonely here when most of the headlines go to dystopian fantasies about Terminators and job losses. As the first knowledge worker in history to have my job threatened by a machine, I’m qualified to say that what matters most is what we do next. If you can’t beat’em, join’em! The Robots Are Coming surveys the AI landscape and explains why we humans shouldn’t panic. Instead, we must focus on using these amazing new tools to make our lives and our society better, just as we have always done with new technology. Artificial Intelligence—I prefer to call it “augmented intelligence”—will transform our lives and our world much as electricity and the internet did, and The Robots Are Coming is an essential and entertaining guide to that transformation. Read this book and don’t be afraid, be prepared." —Garry Kasparov, Author of Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins, and 13th World Chess Champion

From the Publisher

2018-12-06

A keen assessment of the future of work amid sweeping advances in technological automation.

In an alternately thrilling and frightening narrative, Miami Herald foreign affairs columnist Oppenheimer (Innovate or Die!: How to Reinvent Yourself and Thrive in the Innovation Age, 2016, etc.) expertly gauges the pros and cons of the automation revolution, a world rife with robotic replacements, self-driving cars, and virtual bankers, doctors, and lawyers. He offers an eye-opening interview with two European researchers who made headlines with their 2013 predictive study that half of all jobs could vanish over the next two decades. The author then globe-trots through a variety of major world innovation centers to discover how "technological unemployment" could disrupt work forces worldwide. The greatest fear, he writes, is that artificial intelligence will create such a workforce disruption that it will erase more jobs than it can produce. Oppenheimer presents both sides of this argument, with supporting opinions from a gallery of "futurologists" who believe careers won't evaporate; they'll just become more interdisciplinary, with robotic intervention managing the more manually repetitive jobs. He chronicles his trip to Japan, where automation is already fully (though only somewhat successfully) integrated into places like sushi restaurants and a hotel where robots run every aspect of the business down to the lobby aquarium stocked with mechanical goldfish. Other experts excitedly prognosticate about cashless societies, artery-cleaning micro-robots, and cheaper housing, food, and transportation. Meanwhile, techno-pessimists believe a jobless world and gross social inequality is a steep price to pay for these transformative developments, and many propose mollifying alternatives like universal basic income. Thankfully, moments of levity balance all the feverish conjecture: Oppenheimer shares a mysterious mishap with his Alexa personal assistant, a driverless car ride that devolved from "boring to excruciating," and a hilariously awkward televised interview with a glitch-y humanoid robot named Professor Einstein. It's clear that big changes are coming, and Oppenheimer advises that personal and professional preparation is the best defense.

A promising, terrifying, and cautionary exploration of the "unstoppable" rise of automation.

Kirkus Reviews