NPR’s Planet Money program worked up a little interactive tool that purports to tell you whether your job will be automated in the next 20 years. On the whole, Arts and Entertainment fields fair pretty well compared to other areas.

Now obviously, this should be taken with a grain of salt since 20 years ago there essentially was no internet. The Netscape Navigator web browser was only a year old and America Online hadn’t reached the peak busy signal on their modems. There can be plenty of other factors that emerge which may affect your employability in the arts.

Still, it is interesting to see that it is anticipated accountants and auditors have a 93% chance of being replaced by automation. Whereas choreographers have a 0.4% of being replaced. Most performing and visual artists fall below 10% chance of being replaced, except for actors who apparently have a 37% chance of being automated. (There has already been a movie after all)

If nothing else, the little tool makes for some good entertainment. For example, it says Judges have a 40% chance of being replaced, but lawyers only have a 3% chance of being replaced. Does that mean that lawyers will be required to persuade robot judges?

A common thread in all the jobs not likely to be replaced by robots is the requirement for nuanced human interaction, vision and judgment. (Umpires and referees are virtually guaranteed to be replaced according to the chart.)

Granted, if Hollywood and Broadway continue to produce shows based on pre-existing works, an algorithm may successfully replace some writers in the future.

The idea that human created interactions will be of some value in the future is encouraging. Even if artists still continue to be paid poorly.

We just need to hope that the researchers’ basic assumption that human interaction will be valued in 20 years isn’t incorrect.