Martindale Center- Policy Briefs on the Future of Work

The Economic and Technical Feasibility of AI Substitution of Harvesting Jobs in the United States During COVID-19 1 Executive Summary This investigation looks into the economic and technical feasibility of replacing the agricultural job of a harvester in the US with an artificial intelligence (AI) robot during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides policy recommendations based on these findings. Making use of AI to replace harvesting jobs is pragmatic and, in fact, is demonstrated to be economically feasible through an examination of the broader agricultural industry as well as the occupation of a harvester during COVID-19. Next, an examination of the job of a harvester from a technical point of view is undertaken, and while many skills can be replicated, it is shown that the productivity of robots in a number of cases is limited on the shop-floor level by technological bottlenecks. This is done through an investigation of specific tasks a harvester must complete to carry out the job, which demonstrates technical feasibility of substitution depends on what is being harvested. Furthermore, to confirm the conclusions made about feasibility, responses from an interview with the CEO of Harvest CROO Robotics are shown to support the conclusions. Lastly, future employability of harvesting workerscanbecomeproblematicwithalackof legalprotection policies for workers who are victims of AI displacement. With this in mind, a number of policies should be pursued with an eye toward incentivizing the use of robots to complement labor rather than replace it. Issues and Challenges In recent decades, the advancement of technology has been a pacemaker dictating the rhythm by which human beings live their lives. In contemporary parlance, we tend to talk about technology as the development of computer software and hardware, or perhaps new machines based on machine learning. However, what technology reallymeans is any tech- no-scientific knowledge by which human beings develop the tools to practically solve issues. In that sense, technology has Policy Brief on the Future of Work MARTINDALE CENTER always been a pacemaker for humanity, and what has become evident is that technology has drastically increased the speed of that rhythmover the last two centuries. In some instances, this accelerated pace threatens people’s jobs. This job-related uncertainty justifies several studies that analyzed the effect of new technologies within the labor sphere. Many studies, such as the one published in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy (2020), are just beginning to consider the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, in conjunction with the rapid develop- ment of technologies, regarding worker displacement around the world (del Rio-Chanona et al., S94). When considering the possible effects of AI and automation in the labor sphere, the main concerns that arise are the ad- vantages and disadvantages that the use of robots has over the traditional human labor. At least until robots are capable of interacting with humans in a social sense, the main advan- tage of their use will be the reduction of expenses (depending on the industry) in relation to wages, hours of productivity, and transportation, a conclusion reached in an International Labour Organization (ILO) study on Robotics and Reshoring (Barcia de Mattos et al.). Given that robots are not subject to wages, there may well be a motivation to displace human workers if their tasks are appropriate. In terms of hours of productivity, labor laws regulating the maximum number of workday hours might also be a motive to displace workers, once again if their tasks are subject to displacement. Trans- portation concerns are related to the effects of offshoring and reshoring and are therefore a secondary result of the previous two concerns, and worker displacement will depend on the specific needs and alternatives of each industry. With regard to the second objective of this investigation, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature and extent of the impact on the labor sphere have yet to be determined, and most likely will not become clear until the pandemic is These Martindale Center Policy Briefs on the Future of Work were prepared by teams of students and young professionals serving as Research Externs with the Lehigh University / United Nations Partnership working in affiliation with the International Labour Organization. Authors: Zemichael Gebeyehu • Svetlana Gulyaeva • Khadija Khan • Grant Kibel • CameronMacMahon • Mateo Sánchez • Norman Zvenyika Series Editor: Stephen Cutcliffe, Ph.D. February 2021 The Economic and Technical Feasibility of AI Substitution of Harvesting Jobs in the United States During COVID-19