How may robots affect the labour market in the near future?

This chapter discusses how different applications for robots will affect the labour market in the near future. Near future refers to the next 10-50 years. It is likely that several occupations will disappear, but new ones will also emerge. However, we claim that the net result will be negative, which means that we will have higher unemployment. These effects will not happen overnight, and not all occupations will be affected. But, this will happen for a sufficient amount of the population for it to become a problem for society. The observations made in this chapter are not from the point of view of a social scientist, but that of a roboticist. The observations are taken together with readings of scientific literature on automation. I do not claim to have answers to the economic and social scientific problems thrown up, but to raise a set of critical questions for the reader. All the examples in this chapter are real technologies that exist, not just in science-fiction or future technology. However, most of the examples are still in their research stage and are either not available for the general public, or still very expensive. No one can predict the future in detail, but this chapter tries to provide a scenario of the future of different kinds of occupations through the perspective of the field of robotics. I have been developing robots for 15 years and will use some examples that I have constructed, but also examples from other roboticists. The chapter does not discuss the risks of automation for all occupations, but instead focuses on blue-collar workers, such as machine operators, the transportation sector with the advent of driverless cars, white-collar workers in offices, skilled professions in the legal and medical spheres, and creative workers