JUDY WOODRUFF: Some questions:
Will robots take our jobs
or work alongside us?

Are we doing enough to educate
the next generation of workers?

How soon will technology
radically change the work force?

These are just some of the
questions we will be exploring
next week in a series called

The Future of Work.

Tonight, economics correspondent
Paul Solman starts us off by
putting a few of those concerns

into perspective.

It's part of our weekly
series Making Sense.

PAUL SOLMAN: First, the
job scare story you have
likely heard: millions
of humans replaced

by robots, 75 million of
them within five years, says
the World Economic Forum.

But it then adds, 133
million new jobs may be
created at the same time.

That's what's called
creative destruction.

Here's Carl Frey of
Oxford University:

CARL BENEDIKT FREY, Oxford
University: This has -- theme
has been recurring from time

to time for the past 200 years.

If you go back to the
Roman Empire, there
were people expressing
concerns over technological

unemployment as well.

PAUL SOLMAN: Why?

Well, for one thing,
losing a job really hurts.

Roman Emperor Vespasian built
the Coliseum without the help
of labor-saving technology

to move heavy columns because
it would displace manual
labor, threaten civil unrest.

Remember the Luddites, who broke
the high-tech textile looms of
the early 1800s to save their

jobs, and were hanged
for their efforts?

The Washington Post
employees who sabotaged
automated presses in 1975?

And it's not hard to understand
why workers are so resistant
to creative destruction.

Here's MIT's Andrew McAfee:

ANDREW MCAFEE, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology:
Change is scary.

We humans have a bias
for the status quo.

We don't want the boat
rocked really hard.

And it's always easier to focus
on the destruction part than
the creation part, for a lot of

obvious reasons.

It's easy to see this
job being automated away.

It's not as immediately clear
what kinds of jobs, what kinds
of opportunities are being

created by technology.

PAUL SOLMAN: Study after
study has found significant
physical and mental
health effects of even

one layoff, even when the
person found another job.

And Oxford's Carl Frey
has estimated that almost
half of U.S. jobs are
at risk of elimination.

CARL BENEDIKT FREY: If economic
history provides guidance, it
suggests that we will continue

to create a lot of
new jobs as well.

But, even if we do, there's
no assurance that the people
that lose out to automation in

the short run are going
to be the ones employed
in the new jobs that
emerge in the long run.

PAUL SOLMAN: Another
problem with creative
destruction, technological
progress, automation,

robots, they all threaten
to amplify inequality,
creating more high-paying
jobs, possibly more

low-paying jobs, but not
nearly enough in between.

ANDREW MCAFEE: We see technology
creating really good jobs,
very high-paying jobs, really

great careers.

User interface designer
is a great job, data
scientist, machine learning
specialist, product

manager at a high-tech company.

These are really, really
good jobs, upper-middle-class
and above kinds of jobs.

There's also a huge bulge of
jobs being created down at
the low end of the pay scale.

And these are typically
in-person jobs.

They're typically service jobs.

So, we are not creating
this big group of great
middle-class jobs.

PAUL SOLMAN: There's at
least one more question
worth exploring about
the future of work:

How fast are things
going to change?

Are the robots and driverless
trucks just around the corner,
or still miles and miles

down the road?

Again, MIT's McAfee.

ANDREW MCAFEE: Lots of
technology changes are going to
happen quicker than we think.

And I say that for
two main reasons.

The first one is that
all the elements, all
the building blocks of
really powerful technology

platforms and companies,
all those building blocks
are improving super quickly.

They got networks, processors,
storage, bandwidth.

And innovators and entrepreneurs
are combining those building
blocks in really interesting

ways, and they're doing
it faster and cheaper
than ever before.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so these are
the questions we will explore
in next week's Future of Work

series.

Can a small Kentucky community
that once relied on jobs of
the past be transformed into a

hub of jobs of the future?

Will technology and
automation hurt minority
populations the most?

Are robots going to take
our jobs, or will robot
helpers, cobots, wind
up working alongside

us?

Are truck drivers toast?

And, if so, in what time frame?

Finally, how much demand will
there be for the humanities
in a high-tech economy?

We will try to answer
those questions next week.

For now, I'm economics
correspondent Paul Solman.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, don't
miss our entire series
The Future of Work.

That's next Monday through
Friday on the "PBS NewsHour."