John Oliver says your job may vanish due to robots and automation, that isn't all bad, and Trump isn't helping

John Oliver on robots, automation, and Trump
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Last Week Tonight)

"Jobs were a major theme in Donald Trump's presidential campaign — along with, of course, walls, taco bowls, allegations of sexual assault, and admissions of sexual assault," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. "But Trump's primary focus as candidate and president has been on jobs — specifically, who was stealing them." He ran though a list of potential job-stealing countries that Trump might be mispronouncing, in sometimes NSFW ways, and Russia. "And look, some manufacturing jobs are gone because they went overseas, but Trump is completely ignoring another major factor behind job losses: automation," Oliver said. "Its impact has been massive."

"You wouldn't know it from how Trump talks, but our manufacturing sector now produces twice as much as it did in 1984, but we produce it with one-third fewer workers," Oliver said. "Many of those jobs aren't being stolen, they are disappearing because machines are now doing them. And thanks to advances in AI and robotics, there are concerns that this sort of job loss could accelerate."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.