The economic trajectory of Post-Second World War Europe could yield lessons for navigating AI-driven job losses
According to a recent report, up to 800,000 people in Quebec are at risk of losing their jobs to artificial intelligence. It is a potential sea change for the economy and for the labour force, but it isn鈥檛 without precedent. 鈥淎 similar scenario occurred in Europe at the end of the second world war,鈥 says Rob Glew, Assistant Professor (teaching) of Operations Management. 鈥淔or the better part of a decade, manufacturing had been dedicated to arms and equipment for fighting,鈥 Glew told The Elias Makos Show, an AM radio program and a podcast. 鈥淭hen, suddenly, forty to fifty per cent of the work force was working in an industry that was immediately redundant. It was a period of intense social challenge, but ten years later there was a global economic boom that was driven by the changes it drove in the allocation of labour.鈥
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