Page - (000045) - in Disrupted Development and the Future of Inequality in the Age of Automation

37 Abstract Most research on the economic implications of automation has so far focused on advanced industrialized economies where the cost of labor is high and manufacturing shows a high degree of mechani- zation and productivity. Yet, the developing world is likely to be both affected by automation trends in high-income countries (HICs) and is itself catching up in terms of automation. “Late developers” are facing the digital revolution earlier and under different conditions than today’s advanced economies. There is an increasing worry that any low-cost labor advantage of developing countries in international trade is eroding. Beyond the alarmist threat of “technological unemployment,” there are broader questions to be asked about how automation and digitization influence global economic development, employment growth, and struc- tural transformation. Keywords Automation · Robots · Artificial intelligence · Digital revolution · Technological adoption · Automatability 4.1 contemporAry technologicAl trends Stunning technological advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are being reported virtually on a daily basis: from the versatile mobile robots of the US engineering company Boston Dynamics to CHAPTER 4 Technological Transformation © The Author(s) 2020 L. Schlogl and A. Sumner, Disrupted Development and the Future of Inequality in the Age of Automation, Rethinking International Development series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30131-6_4