The disruption of labor by humanoid robots is about tasks, not jobs. Robots will not hold jobs the way humans do. Instead, they will perform individual tasks, and the disruption advances task by task rather than job by job.

At first, humanoid robots will mostly take on tasks that are dangerous, boring, repetitive, or currently hard to fill because of labor shortages. This creates a period of complementarity between robots and human workers. Robots take the dirty and dangerous work, freeing human workers to focus on more skilled or creative tasks. This will give the (false) impression that robots are simply enhancing existing jobs rather than replacing them.

As robots become more capable, they will increasingly be able to perform the tasks that humans currently do. This leads to widespread job displacement, because human workers are no longer needed once the marginal cost of robot labor approaches zero. A job is a bundle of tasks, and as more and more of those tasks are absorbed, whole jobs come apart, including many that feel secure today.

Finally, robots will take on entirely new tasks that were never economical when labor was scarce and expensive. They might sort through decades of garbage accumulated in landfills, landscape long-neglected areas, or renovate the office buildings, retail spaces, and parking areas left vacant as a result of humanoid and robotaxi labor. The work itself does not run out. What changes is who, or what, performs it, and at what cost.

Essentially, the supply of labor stops being limited by the number of people available to do it. The question then shifts from where the jobs will go to how we make sure people share in the prosperity when work becomes something machines do. That is why the guiding principle should be to protect people, not jobs.

Explore the evidence...

• The reframing that the disruption operates on tasks rather than jobs and moves through a grace period of complementarity before widespread displacement, is set out across our insights into humanoid robotics, including the trajectory toward a marginal cost of labor approaching zero. Read the insights here

• Our blog The Painful Truth about AI & Robotics explains why the early appearance of robots simply enhancing jobs gives way to displacement, as humans become unable to compete on cost. Read the blog here. 

• Evaluating a robot as a one-to-one replacement for a worker misunderstands how this unfolds, because converging technologies create entirely new systems of work rather than swapping like for like. 

Witness the transformation

In the span of just fifteen years, the working horse went from providing the vast majority of road travel to a tiny fraction of it. The automobile had arrived, and the fate of the horse was sealed. We are now on the cusp of a disruption every bit as swift and complete, except this time, we humans are the horses.

A convergence of sensors, computing, actuators, and batteries now gives humanoid robots the capability to perform both cognitive and physical work. AI is already taking on cognitive tasks once reserved for people, and humanoid robots are bringing the same capability to physical tasks. For the first time, the supply of available labor can expand as fast as machines can be built and trained. These systems are already approaching cost parity with human labor across much of the global economy, and their cost will keep falling while their capability keeps rising.

This is about far more than cheaper labor. Robots will create an entirely new and vastly larger labor system in which the marginal cost of labor approaches zero. The result will be a sweeping tide of falling costs, rising quality, and explosive productivity that forms the foundation of an era of superabundance. The nations, industries, and individuals who recognize this early, and who choose to protect people rather than jobs, will be best positioned to navigate the transformation and capture its extraordinary benefits.

Learn more about the disruption of labor and its implications for jobs, society, and the economy.