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ur relationship used to be jolly — the driver was a gracious and soft-spoken elderly man. We traded small jokes and acknowledged each other when we occasionally passed by one another on the street.

But four months ago I decided to change to an Android-based phone and downloaded not one or two, but three transportation apps. I jettisoned a harmonious relationship with the humble ojek driver, the purveyor of easy transportation services that I relied upon for over a decade.

The result was brilliant. I was able to travel everywhere at low fares with minimum hassle. But I can never look him in the eye again. It wasn’t me, I wanted to plead. It is technology that has killed your job. But that was rather hard to explain with a straight face to his crumpled look and shabby motorbike.

Many people may have a similar story. They may, however, not be aware that their jobs could also be killed off by technology.

Automation, robotics and artificial intelligence are predicted to destroy employment in 15 developed countries over the next three years according to the World Economic Forum — about 5 million jobs altogether. The International Labor Organization estimates that 56 percent of jobs in Southeast Asia are at risk from similar trends within 20 years.

Most threatened are the low-skilled workers in footwear, clothing and textile industries who currently serve as the backbone to the economies in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

The same goes to clerical workers such as secretaries, accountants, surveyors or event planners. One could argue that specialized fields such as journalism will also fall prey to technology as print newspapers are abolished, taken out by digital media outlets.

It hasn’t stopped there. An experiment run by Google X has successfully shown that machines can better diagnose diseases than a board of certified dermatologists and radiologists — thus triggering tricky questions about algorithms taking over medical professions.

The current conflict between taxi services and app-based transportation services may soon be obsolete too. App-based hailing services may reign today, but automotive companies have been developing driverless cars for the last few decades.

Cutting-edge car-maker Tesla hopes to usher in self-driving cars by the end of this year — pending policy regulation and testing. Once driverless cars roll out, the end is practically nigh for anyone who drives for a living.

Technology is, in short, a killer for all.

There’s hope, of course. History suggests that jobs born out of innovation and invention exceed the amount of jobs liquidated. This optimistic view is supported by a long history of technological advancement from the time of the steam-engine onwards.

The Luddites, a group of weavers and textile workers who were furious about losing their jobs in the early 1800s, tried to destroy modern machinery in order to stop technology from affecting their lives. They failed.

Technology fought back by providing a steady stream of jobs and dramatic economic growth. Practically every following invention: electricity, telecommunications, railways, airplanes, ship containers and computers are gifts to society and blessings to business. They have successfully created miracles for the last three centuries. Why would this trend cease with the next batch of inventions — really, what should we be worried about?

Oh, but worry we should. A less optimistic view insists on technological unemployment: the gap between the jobs created compared to jobs killed after a new invention. One argument details how GM, Ford and Chrysler took in US$36 billion in profits in the 1990s and employed more than 1 million workers. Compare that to today’s tech titans Google, Apple and Facebook. These companies have amassed a trillion dollars in profit but employ only 137,000 people combined.

It is evident that technology may not only kill jobs but also exacerbate inequality as profits go to a far smaller portion of society.

One alarming development has quickly captured the attention of scientists: the phenomenon of deaths of despair in the United States. This phenomenon focuses on people who have lost their lives to suicide, overdoses and diseases caused by addiction to either drugs or alcohol.

A 2015 study from two Princeton economists found that victims of deaths of despair were middle-aged non-Hispanic whites without college degrees. There is conjecture that these people likely fell victim to addiction, propelled in part by employment woes.

Graft this study onto America’s 2008 economic crisis and we have a grim picture of people losing their jobs never to regain them again because of the severity economic problems at that time. Finding employment without a college degree has become so much harder and thus has contributed to further uncertainty, greater depression and quicker routes to addiction.

Inject automation, artificial intelligence and robotics into this fragile picture and what chance do they have to survive?

The Indonesian context may differ from that of the American one. However, the path to a solution can’t be too dissimilar. The government’s task is clear: to prevent net employment loss and deaths of despair. One crucial step is providing education and skill-sets that will reward those who can’t afford college.

Exercising power is consequential — balancing the promotion of innovation while also caring for society. This should mean measures to close the inequality gap, investing in healthcare in a bid to create a “safety net” for the affected population. Otherwise, too much technological change may just deliver too many problems in our future.
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The writer currently works for CNN Indonesia and manages MendadakSains.com to campaign communication for science.