Hillary Clinton could have won 2016 election instead of Trump if there were fewer robots, study says
Oxford University study finds that workers whose jobs were at risk of automation were more likely to vote for Donald Trump
President Donald Trump might not have made it to the White House if the number of robots in the labour market wasn’t as high, according to researchers.
A study by three Oxford University academics found that workers exposed to automation were more likely to vote for Trump than for his Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Automation has always been an engine of prosperity,” Professor Carl Frey said in a statement Monday.
“But it can take a long time for the benefits to show, and workers who are not able to find better paid jobs are more likely to be hostile towards the new technology.”
Three key states won by the president — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — could have swung in favour of Clinton , had robot adoption in the U.S. been just two per cent lower, according to Frey’s research.
Frey said: “This time around, things are very different in one important regard — ordinary workers are also voters, and if voters come to see automation as the cause of their misfortunes, they opt for a political system that restricts it and the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) may not be made possible.”