RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Fears of a dystopian future in which humans go jobless as robots and artificial intelligence take over have triggered novels, research, movies and more that warn of a “jobless future.”

But new research suggests that jobs will remain plentiful in coming years despite the march of bots, the Internet of Things, AI and machine learning that is driving more and more automation.

“The study challenges the false alarmism that contributes to a culture of risk aversion and holds back technology adoption, innovation, and growth,” wrote the authors of “The Future of Skills: Employment in 2030.”

“We predict that around one-tenth of the workforce are in occupations that are likely to grow as a percentage of the workforce. Around one-fifth are in occupations that will likely shrink,” says the study from the University of Oxford, the Nesta global innovation foundation, and Pearson, an international firm focused on learning.

While pointing out that millions of jobs are likely to be lost, the authors point out the 20 percent figure is “much lower than recent studies of automation have suggested. This means that roughly seven in ten people are currently in jobs where we simply cannot know for certain what will happen.”

They do, however, acknowledge that “our findings about skills suggest that occupation redesign coupled with workforce retraining could promote growth in these occupations.”