Should We Worry About Robots?

For many smiles, do take a look at these dancing robots:

Next though, we should ask if they will replace us.

Impact of Robots

In an August 2021 Brookings Report, an NYU associate professor explained how robots would affect labor markets. Summarizing the academic research, he predicted a positive impact.

Looking at firms in Canada, France, Spain, and Japan, researchers concluded that robot adoption spurred low-skill job growth and productivity. At the same time, though, similar non-adopting manufacturing companies lost employees. So, we wind up with a tension. While the robot adopters are better off,  their growth did not entirely offset the job losses elsewhere.  Meanwhile, in nursing homes robots assisted employees. Helping aides lift patients, robots diminished injuries and employee turnover.

The following video simply explains the meaning of the total factor productivity that robots boosted:

Our Bottom Line: Labor Markets

We can use a circular flow model to identify the “location” of labor markets. First, we need to remember that a market is a process through which supply and demand determine price and quantity, Then, we can find labor markets whenever businesses interact with employees.

In the lower loop, you can imagine workers leaving households for their jobs.  Meanwhile, employers “meet” them halfway to negotiate wages and salaries. The “place” is a factor market:

So yes, robots affect factor markets by shifting what humans do. But we can hypothesize that everyone at Hyundai can benefit from its recent acquisition.

My sources and more: Thanks to a CBS 60 Minutes program that demonstrated the dancing robots. Then, hearing that their developer, Boston Dynamics, was acquired by Hyundai, next, it made sense to see the economic impact. At that point, Brookings had some of the answers. However, we should note that the purpose of the Report was to oppose a robot tax. For us though, it was the perfect response to people that worry about robots eliminating jobs.