Southeast Asian policymakers have been urged to embrace the fourth industrial revolution to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), with more than half of the jobs in Southeast Asia at risk of automation.

This is one of the preliminary findings of a report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The term fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, was first used at the World Economic Forum in 2016 with reference to technological breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence and automation.

Simon Baptist, chief economist and managing director for Asia at the EIU, said recently that the technological revolution would create many benefits in the long run, but there would be a transitional period.

“That period is going to be painful, going to cause displacement, and governments are going to have an absolutely critical role,” he told a symposium on localizing SDGs and eradicating poverty in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Tuesday, which was held in cooperation between ASEAN, the Chinese Mission to ASEAN and the UNDP.

According to the International Labour Organization, 137 million workers, or 56 percent of the salaried workforce in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, are facing the risk of having their jobs taken away by robots, which are better at assembly, cheaper and increasingly able to collaborate with people.

Multiple industries, such as automotive manufacturing, electronics, garments, business processes, logistics and health care, are facing different levels of risks to automation.

Baptist said people in the electronics sector faced a high risk of automation, given how easy and programmable their tasks were for robots to handle, while the textiles and garment sector was actually less exposed, because fabrics were too soft for robots to handle and have more variety than electronics.

This meant that countries with bigger textile industries, like Vietnam and Cambodia, were probably less exposed than countries with big electronics industries, like Malaysia or the Philippines, Baptist said.

The government has the critical role of shaping the way technology impacts the economy, society and the quality of life, he said, “and the earlier we get ahead of this and think about what we do to maximize benefits and reduce risks, the better the impact on people and communities we work with.”

UNDP Asia-Pacific regional policy and program chief Jaco Cilliers said governments needed to think differently in dealing with the complexity of the fourth industrial revolution.

“The challenges of Industry 4.0 cannot be dealt with only by the Ministry of Labor or the Ministry of Technology. It has to [be dealt with] by multiple government ministries and the private sector working together,” he said.

Governments in the region were also urged to expand social protection to maximize the benefits and reduce the costs, especially for the most vulnerable people.

Ciliers said governments needed to create a tech-driven economy and transform public services to provide wider coverage and increase efficiency.

Artificial intelligence could help governments achieve the SDGs, said Sophia, a humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics that was recently appointed as UNDP Asia-Pacific Innovation Champion.

“AI can crunch enormous amount of data in high speed to provide detailed pictures of development issues at the national and local level,” it said in a conversation with symposium participants.

The robot said AI could crunch data and provide analysis to target specific problems, such as disease outbreaks and education in remote areas or marginalized communities.

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