The effects of “machine replacing human” on carbon emissions in the context of population aging – Evidence from China

How to break the labor gap caused by population aging has triggered an excellent concern for sustainable development in various countries. Meanwhile, Industry 4.0 is leading the world to explore the artificial intelligence field. Therefore, a deeper analysis of the effects of labor substitution of artificial intelligence on carbon emissions in the context of population aging is urgent. We constructed fixed effect, moderating effect, and panel threshold models using data from the World Federation of Robotics (IFR) and 30 Chinese provinces from 2006 to 2019 to examine the critical relationships between population aging, industrial robots, and carbon emissions. The findings of the paper are: (1) Industrial robots have a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions. (2) Population aging also leads to a decrease in carbon emissions, and industrial robots serve as a mediating factor for this effect. (3) Threshold regression shows that the inhibiting effect on carbon emissions decreases as industrial robots surpass the threshold and increases as population aging crosses the threshold. The conclusions of this paper provide countermeasures for countries and regions in the throes of population aging to achieve sustainable development; that is, seizing the opportunity of industrial robots' development is extremely imperative.