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The future of the US workforce will rely on AI, but don't count human workers out just yet

Artificial intelligence has replaced – including .

The tech revolution has by American workers. A 2018 Gallup poll revealed that AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates.

Andrew Yang , raising the prospect that millions are at risk for long-term joblessness.

I'm in the U.S., and I believe that AI will undoubtedly change the future of U.S. labor—but Yang is also exaggerating the impact AI will have on the workforce.

The solution to job loss sparked by automation lies less in , and more in the labor force, a process that would involve educating workers to do the jobs a more automated economy will require.

Growing industries

MIT economist has noted that rather than the whole job.

For example, people process information at work, while computers can only execute instructions. Even jobs that have shrunk because of automation include components that require human judgment.

This is why there are still occupations like customer service agents, many routine transactions.

, which lie at the heart of AI, are never right all the time. Incidents that fall outside the boundaries of ordinary or routine decisions—for example, – have to be handled by people who can make complex decisions.

This means that , the ones that can truly be replaced because they follow the same routines, , while middle- and high-skill jobs are likely to grow.

But the results are not always easy to predict. For example, many bank tellers have been . But this development has lowered the cost of running a bank branch so profoundly that banks are sprouting on every corner in most major cities.

As a result of these two countervailing forces, the number of tellers since the invention of the ATM, mainly because they were needed to service the nonroutine aspects of customer service in a growing number of branches.

Who's at risk?

Economists who study AI often underplay the gravity of the jobs losses it will create because they tend to look at the big picture.

Overall, new technology usually increases the demand for labor because it spurs growth. But for single-industry regions like or , the big picture is little comfort.

Positive economic growth across the country – – does not pay the bills for auto workers on the assembly line who have been replaced by robots. If they haven't had the opportunity to become an expert in robot repair, they may have a hard time.

³Û²¹²Ô²µâ€”w³ó´Ç – argues that so that they have time to ponder the right path.

, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, argues that , and I believe she's right. Giving people money for , but isn't the right solution for people who need to remain in the workforce.

Instead, U.S. officials need to build ladders to that are . Institutes of higher education need to create certificates for technical courses so that current workers do not become obsolete.

Reskilling the workforce

Education is not an enterprise that should end after school.

Accommodating change in the labor market means continuous training. Educational institutions that complement classroom learning, which creates general skills, with shop floor experience, , forge a valuable combination.

That's what the decades ago when they created their "" system that combines rigorous classroom training with apprenticeships on the shop floor.

That fusion has . in all those occupations certify just how much an apprentice knows and can do on the shop floor.

Although the U.S. pursued , most companies later abandoned it, mainly because employers were not willing to commit the kind of resources in the form of in-house training that the .

Investing in these forms of training will not happen just by giving people . Reskilling necessitates a as well as of the kind German companies are making.

Reskilling is . In 2010, the federal government, states and municipalities in Germany.

But I see it as the only sensible solution to keep workers—whether new to the labor force or experienced and determined to avoid technical obsolescence—ahead of automation, productively employed in the industries of the future and able to take care of themselves.