According to economist Carl Benedikt Frey, artificial intelligence will likely cause job losses in industrialized countries. In an interview with the German weekly “Die Zeit”, he explained that “we will experience a much larger shift of this work to low‑wage countries, where people can boost their productivity with the help of AI”.
Frey says the new technology lowers entry barriers for knowledge work and content production, such as writing. “Less‑skilled, inexperienced workers stand to benefit because AI makes them more productive, and because they can offer their labor from anywhere” he notes. He points out that a software developer in Manila earns far less than one in Frankfurt, highlighting the widening wage gap that accompanies the shift. He added that the outcome is a stronger migration of work away from Europe and the United States. “It isn’t necessarily automation that takes jobs from workers in Europe or America; for a German employee it feels like it anyway”.
At Oxford University, Frey directs the Future of Work program and is regarded as one of the most influential labor‑market researchers worldwide. A 2013 study he co‑authored concluded that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are automatable. The paper has been cited over 20,000 times and has shaped the global conversation about the future of work.