A working paper from two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco illustrates how the Coronavirus pandemic may accelerate the trend towards automation of some workplaces:

“Workers can be exposed to health risks, and social distancing measures can reduce labor productivity by hindering the ability to work. But robots do not get sick,” Leduc and Liu wrote in the paper, posted on the San Francisco Fed’s website on May 8. “If a production process can be automated, a firm can use a robot instead of a worker to perform some risky tasks. In this sense, automation provides a hedge against job uncertainty stemming from the pandemic.”

Of course this trend has been going on for years, particularly in manufacturing. And in some cases, we’ve seen that automation sometimes creates new problems. It’s not always a silver bullet, but the chaos caused by this pandemic will certainly lead to more companies investigating ways to replace humans with machines in the workplace.

There’s been a lot of talk of the U.S. losing jobs to other countries through bad trade deals, and anger over this issue has helped give Donald Trump the Presidency.

Yet reality is much more complicated, as automation, robots and now artificial intelligence are also a huge factor, and these trends will help destroy even more jobs in the years to come.

Some of this is obvious. Just think about all of the robots and automation that have reduced the number of workers needed in manufacturing. We all want high wages for workers, but higher wages give companies even more motivation to automate more of the manufacturing process. As robots get smarter and more sophisticated, this trend will only accelerate.

Then consider artificial intelligence and the potential to make lawyers and accountants so much more efficient, which then reduces the need for more lawyers and accountants.

This trend will only accelerate, which raises tough issues for our leaders, particularly those who offer simplistic solutions to difficult problems.