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As the debate over artificial intelligence rages on the promenade of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Doctor Doom warns against humanoid robots.
“The big advance right now is the evolution of humanoid robots that basically follow individual workers on factory floors and construction sites and even restaurant chefs and housekeepers. It’s going to happen in 2020,” Nouriel Roubini said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid Podcast (watch video above, listen below).
Roubini, known as “Doctor Doom” for his dire economic predictions, said human jobs would be lost to humanoids.
“Instead, an LLM (Large-Scale Language Model) learns everything in the world, and within a few months the entire internet is tracking your job, my job, or someone else’s job, and then the construction workers, We’re going to learn everything that factory workers and other service workers know. And I think it’s going to be a revolution – it’s going to have an impact on blue-collar jobs like we’ve never seen before.”
A Citi study recently found that the humanoid robot market could reach $7 trillion by 2050. Robots like Tesla’s (TSLA) Optimus could do everything from cleaning your house to folding your laundry. Jobs may be lost to robots as routine tasks become automated.
Roubini is also concerned about the potential impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy.
During his campaign, President Trump proposed several ways in which tariffs could be increased. These include 10% to 20% tariffs on all foreign imports, 60% to 100% additional tariffs on China, and 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
Three days into his second term, President Trump has yet to announce any details, but a dark cloud hangs over the market.
Read more: What is a tariff? How does it affect you?
Roubini said the tariffs could lead to a resurgence of U.S. inflation and the Fed raising interest rates.
The Street is scrambling to estimate the potential economic impact.
Goldman Sachs estimates that if a flat 10% tariff were implemented, the Fed’s personal consumption expenditures index (PCE) would rise to 3% by the end of 2025. The growth rate of PCE was expected to slow to around 2.5% in 2024.
“This means there is likely to be a period of uncertainty that could tighten financial conditions and weigh on growth. In our base case, uncertainty is resolved and financial conditions are “In our tariff risk case, uncertainty continues to rise and financial conditions worsen,” said Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs. spoke.
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