In striving to make America great again, President Trump is wise to focus upon jobs. His desire to bolster manufacturing in the United States and create a climate in which employment blossoms resonated with millions of voters across the country and played a key role in landing him in the White House.
But while Trump’s goal is lofty, the reality of modern industry requires a more thoughtful and nuanced approach than the one he has thus far embraced. Trump and his administration must prepare for the game-changing role that automation will continue to play in the economy.
This was driven home by a recent article out of Eastern Washington from the Associated Press, which detailed how automated picking machines are destined to transform the state’s agriculture industry. At least two California-based companies are close to releasing prototypes of machines that can pick fruit off of trees and, therefore, render human fruit pickers obsolete. One of the machines, for example, will have a three-finger grip and four to 12 arms, giving it the ability to pluck up to 10,000 apples an hour.
When the machines are developed to the point of being cost-efficient, they will provide a boon for apple growers. But they will be a death-knell for the career prospects of apple pickers and send ripples through the economy. As Erik Nicholson of the United Farm Workers union in Seattle said: “A robot is not going to rent a house, buy clothing for their kids, buy food in a grocery and reinvest that money in the local economy.” Even migrant workers spend money in a community while they are there.
Equally disruptive will be the development of machines that can learn on the job. As syndicated columnist Froma Harrop wrote recently: “Artificial intelligence goes way beyond the elementary programming of robots to tighten screws. . . . With traditional robots, at least you needed humans to do the programming. Technology is now being developed that would let the machines program themselves.”
Throughout history, innovation has proved disruptive to traditional industries. The digital revolution is one of the most notable examples of this, impacting just about every job imaginable over the past 30 years or so. It wasn’t all that long ago that this editorial would be written on a typewriter, handed over to a copy editor on a piece of paper, and eventually translated onto hot metal type. And while these changes are inevitable and eventually prove beneficial for consumers, they also call for adjustments by employers and governments in the way workers are trained.
During an interview last week, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke of “robotics and artificial intelligence and things that are really going to be upending the economy for the vast majority of Americans, to say nothing of the rest of the world.” It is essential that Trump embrace this vision and help to create a climate in which the workers of tomorrow can be developed. One example of his failure to do this is represented by his embrace of the outdated coal industry, an industry that has been bypassed both technologically and economically. Another is his insistence that manufacturing jobs — many of which do not exist anymore because of automation — will return to America.
Instead, the administration should be preparing workers for the reality that robotics and artificial intelligence are again transforming the workplace. Making America great again means having a vision for the future, not continually looking wistfully at the past.
