Former President Barack Obama says closing borders won’t create future jobs because what’s changing industries like manufacturing are automation and artificial intelligence.
Obama spoke yesterday at an event hosted by a progressive Canadian think tank.
He says the transition from the agriculture economy to the industrial economy happened over the course of 150 years, but that the technological revolution is happening in 20 years.
He says it’s hard for governments to catch up to the pace of disruption. Obama says over the next 25 years, advanced economies will have to confront the fact that there is not going to be enough high-paying full-time work as we traditionally conceive it.
He says factories will be empty because they’ll be run by robots and artificial intelligence.