Politicians are focused on the effects of trade, but automation is rapidly changing the nature of the work. A recent report from McKinsey, a consultancy, points out that half of today's jobs can be transformed into machines that fundamentally change the nature of manufacturing, retail, catering, data processing and other industries.

China's India, the United States, and Japan will witness the biggest and most rapid changes in the economy, with the availability of convenient money, an aging population and declining productivity. According to McKinsey, nearly 400 million of Chinese and 235 million of Indians face competition from automated robots. In Japan and the United States, 60% of the jobs are likely to be replaced by machines.

Although the jobs will not disappear, but the work done will change, today about 1/3 of the repetitive work may be replaced by the machine.

Latin America will also witness significant changes in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, about half of the workforce will face the threat of automation, higher than the proportion of the United states. Robot sales have reached $2 billion a year, showing that the change is already happening.

Brazil seems to be the most vulnerable to change. Stagnant productivity, aging populations, and high production costs make labor expensive. In manufacturing, retail, transportation, agriculture, about half of the work of 32 million workers may be automated.

Argentina's economy may not be so vulnerable to the impact of automation, but its aging population and up to ten years of investment deficiency may cause the company to increase capital investment in the robot, especially Argentina's current president Macri under the leadership of the government of the market is also more friendly. Argentina's strong union power and unstable power conditions may slow the trend towards automation, but half of all agricultural and manufacturing jobs are, by nature, vulnerable.

From a structural point of view, Mexico is the highest potential for automation, because there are 2/3 plastic, automobile, aerospace and other advanced manufacturing industry in facing the prospect of phasing out, affecting 5 million workers. But Mexico's automation process is likely to be slower as a result of a smaller population and lower wages.

The problem of global concern is what will happen later. Optimists believe there will be new jobs for the replacement workers. They point out that jobs that are not considered before, such as auto repair, coal miners, engineers, and new software application developers, will receive more attention. Pessimists believe that things will really become different, the rise of artificial intelligence will become a viable alternative to people.

McKinsey's view is optimistic that the government should expand the social safety net to protect those who are vulnerable to the impact of labor unrest. The government also needs to change the school and education system, training for the twenty-first Century, to improve the artificial intelligence rather than compete with them. The government should also vigorously support scientific research and innovation to help workers to complete the ongoing revolution.

For Latin America, it means to promote these types of investments, because even if they will break the status quo today, they will ensure that the region will not lag behind in this global trend.