He noted that the challenge now is "the transformation of the labor market in connection with robotics."

“Everything new always causes concern. I recall that the fear of competition with cars in the 17-18 century led to what? They simply tried to destroy these machines so as not to create competitors for themselves, ”he said.

But “in the four centuries since the industrial revolution,” Medvedev pointed out, machines could not displace people “and in all likelihood, thank God, they will not displace.”

“But a few years ago, we experienced the same fears, and discussed at our forum what will happen. Nobody could give any guarantees on employment issues, although today scientists say ... that in the next two years, 133 million new ones will appear on the planet in exchange for the disappeared 75 million traditional jobs, ”he added.

According to him, "this inspires some optimism."

“This confidence is based on the processes on the labor market that we are seeing today ... It is clear that there are already many robots: there are about two and a half million robots in the world, but mainly in individual countries that have made their choice and which technologically and financially ready, ”he said.

Among them, the Prime Minister included, including Germany and Singapore.

“The level of employment in these countries is high, but nevertheless we must still prepare for a serious retraining of people. It is necessary to train specialists who are able to work with automation technologies, with robots. And low-skilled labor, it is clear that it must ultimately go to robots, and people should have the so-called soft skills, that is, creative thinking, the ability to quickly solve problems, and this is probably the biggest difficulty. This in turn requires changes in the education system, ”he stressed.

A previously published study by the RANEPA showed that by 2030, the competencies of 45.5% of workers in Russia may lose relevance due to the introduction of robots in operation.

The head of the representative office of the University of Singularity in Moscow, Evgeny Kuznetsov, also noted that in the future, due to the global trend towards robotization of the economy and business, the driver and seller professions may disappear.