The thing that seems to worry people most about the next phase of automation is the sense that no one will be safe. This time it isn’t just factory workers and typists on the chopping block, we are told, it is taxi drivers, accountants and lawyers. Perhaps this is why people have been slow to think about the potential geographic impact of technological progress. If everyone is going to be affected, then everywhere will surely be too.
Yet previous waves of disruption have not swept across countries indiscriminately. They have been shaped by the contours of the economic landscape. Will things really be different this time? A growing body of research suggests the geographic impact of the new machine age will, in fact, be deeply uneven.
A paper published this week by the OECD, the Paris-based club of mostly rich nations, says the distribution of jobs at high risk of automation varies sharply.