Robots could turn nations red, one expert has warned.
In a speech at the Canada Growth Summit, the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney said the automation of millions of jobs could lead to mass unemployment, wage stagnation and the growth of communism within a generation, the U.K.-based Independent reported.
“Marx and Engels may again become relevant,” he warned.
“The benefits, from a worker’s perspective, from the first industrial revolution, which began in the latter half of the 18th century, were not felt fully in productivity and wages until the latter half of the 19th century,” he said, the Telegraph reported.
“If you substitute platforms for textile mills, machine learning for steam engines, Twitter for the telegraph, you have exactly the same dynamics as existed 150 years ago — when Karl Marx was scribbling the Communist Manifesto.”
Carney, who exits his post in 2019, said the years of weak salary growth since the financial crisis suggest that same 19th-century experience is already being repeated, the Independent reported.
He added there were signs of “hollowing out” in the job market as mid-level workers find computers able to complete specific tasks — even some previously considered skilled work.
“There is a disconnect in expectations,” he said, adding “over 90 per cent of citizens don’t think their jobs will be affected by automation, but a similar percentage of CEOs think the opposite, in the number of jobs which will be materially affected.”
The signs are everywhere, he said: law firms are using artificial intelligence to comb through documents and read evidence, something traditionally done by junior lawyers; banks have used a combination of artificial intelligence and big data to computerize customer service departments, making humans there irrelevant.
Jobs in the taxi industry could also be scrapped as self-driving technology improves, he added.
Carney indicated workers should begin sharpening their interpersonal skills that’ll be needed for jobs in the leisure and service industries.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.