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Week 8 [28.11-04.12] - Will technology replace your job?


We live in a world of change driven by technology. Most of the changes improve our lives. But how does technology change the way we work?

History

Technology has a long history of “stealing” human jobs. When alarm clocks were neither affordable nor reliable there were people who worked as alarm clocks. In Britain and Ireland these people were called “knocker-uppers”, they had to get up early and wake up their clients.

Knocker-upper at work (source: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/how-north-east-ancestors-up-11113650)

You might have heard of Luddites. This movement was a result of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, when textile workers lost their jobs and protested against newly developed technologies by destroying industrial equipment.

Luddites crushing equipment (source: http://jdennehy.com/revolutions-luddites/)

Jobs at risk

Below is an overview of a few jobs that may be replaced in the near future.

Cashiers

This is the most obvious one and you may have already used self-checkout machines in supermarkets. According to recent studies,  jobs based on predictable physical activities are most at risk of being replaced by machines.

Self-checkout machines (source: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/monica-guzman/2013/06/29/seattle-app-follows-self-checkout-machines-in-bid-for-your-groceries/)

Drivers

A self-driving car is not a distant dream anymore. Huge IT companies and car manufacturers have been working on self-driving cars for years, and about one month ago there was the first delivery made by a self-driving truck: Uber delivered 50,000 cans of beer.

Self-driving bus in Helsinki (source: http://112.international/society/finland-to-roll-self-driving-buses-onto-helsinkis-roads-8626.html)

Doctors

Maybe not surgeons, but jobs based on diagnosing and suggesting a treatment, for example, therapists, are likely to be replaced. Recently a computer system,  IBM Watson,  was tested on 1000 cancer diagnoses and in 30% of cases it found a treatment option that doctors missed.

IBM Watson servers (source: http://fortune.com/2016/10/17/ibm-watson-belongs-to-ibm/)

Interpreters

Automatic translation systems don’t work properly yet, and I guess you know what masterpieces Google Translate can generate, but machine learning revolution can resolve these issues. GNMT system by Google is already approaching human-level accuracy in translation.

In-ear device for instant translation (source: http://www.boredpanda.com/real-time-translator-ear-waverly-labs/)

Conclusion

Technical progress has its pros and cons, but it’s unstoppable and there’s nothing we can do about it. It seems that we should simply adapt ourselves to it and I’m sure that by replacing some jobs, technical progress will create new ones, maybe with a higher level of creativity.

What do you think about this problem?
Do you think your job will be stolen by robots?
Should government protect people from tech unemployment?

References


Comments

Sylwia Pechcin said…
I think that we have to deal with that problem, because we can't stop the technology development.
The main advantage is that we as IT guys won't lost our jobs because of robots, at least not in a few nearest years, later who knows?
Personally I work as a graphic designer and I don't think that my work will be stolen by robots. I mean - I hope so ;). Now I can observe fall of demand on graphic projects because of Internet where everyone can generate project of logotype or website almost for free. But I think that all jobs that needs creativity won't be stolen as fast as these schematic jobs.
Jarek_Ziem said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jarek_Ziem said…
It's one of the biggest challenge of the future. How we can maintain huge amounts of non-qualified population, when replacement it's just matter of time.
Elon Musk has some proposition: "There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," says Musk to CNBC. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen."

Automation of many professions will lead to frustration of the masses. Basic income is short term solution and it will be exploited by least intelligent and skilled part of the world’s population like we can see in the Western societies.

reference http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html
Unknown said…
In my opinion it's No problem. For me it is help for people. Robots don't take fully places works. We have to be careful that it didn't go too far.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Unfortunately it's most likely to happen, robots will take a lot of jobs, for example there will be no truck drivers in 10-20 years - it will be safer and cheaper to use self-driving systems.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I agree, it's better to deal with it - the other solution is to start crushing computers:) I think that designer job is not likely to be stolen. Some automatic services may design basic layouts, but designing complex solutions requires human creativity.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Thanks for an interesting insight, I've read that Finland is going to experiment with the basic income in the near future. I guess it may cause a huge inflation since everybody will receive money for nothing and these money will not be based on the value of labor.
Unknown said…
For sure we can't stop the development in the technology. This is what comes after. The machines that are making our lives easier and better, sometimes do our work so good that we are not even needed to have it done. Some easy, mechanical jobs will be - already started to be - replaced by machines and technology. But also it gives us opportunity to work in different areas. Maybe no one is needed anymore to do some work that a machine can do instead, but there is a need for someone who will take care about those machines, will supervise its work and all the other jobs that automation brings.
Unknown said…
Smart technologies are now being increasingly used across many industries and workplaces, the common thing is factory full of robots. But thanks to it the prices of any electrical devices are much lower and widely available.
I am studying IT so technology development is my area, therefore the robots, won't stole my job.
Piotr Basiński said…
It's very interesting topic. In future jobs write about will disappear and machines will do those things. Another examples of jobs that can be easily replaced in future are teachers. In future probably will replace theam. Robots will be able to teach and artificial intelligence will becomes advance enough. Another example can be programmers, in future machines will be able to programming each other and create new software. If artificial intelligence will really work similar to the human. Computers will be able to think and do programming.
Unknown said…
Whenever I talk about such things I always remember Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory, where main character's father lost his job due to robots replacing manual labor, and later regained a job, this time as robots serviceman.
Unknown said…
Development in science removes some labors, but also creates new jobs, so I don't think that we have to worry about that. We might just keep on learning new things so that we don't stay behind.
I think it is a serious problem, but it will affect only these people, who don't care about their personal development. Of course, some jobs will, sooner or later, be replaced by robots for sure, but we still have enough time to prepare ourselves for that. It is crucial not to be a passive observer but to learn new skills and turn this situation into your own advantage.
Unknown said…
It's a really big problem, but technology isn't reliable so we always need people. I think that sooner or later come to this, that some jobs will be replaced by machines. Certainly people working in IT doesn't have to worry about, on the contrary they will have more and more work with the development of technology. What about my job? I'm graphic designer and now I'm designing interfaces and web graphics, so it's still a profession on time. In my opinion creative jobs that aren't something you can replace unless that will be created artificial intelligence that is able to think creatively, but probably I won't live to see this moment.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
That's a good point, but required level of personal development may become too high depending on the AI technology level. So even jobs that require creativity may be stolen.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
If you mean jobs for maintaining these machines there will be a lot less workers, don't you think? For example there could be 10 cashiers but instead there's a single administrator maintaining them.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I agree, IT seems to be less endangered but it depends on the job, for example sysadmin job may be stolen since everything becomes fully automated in the cloud services like AWS.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I hope that it will not happen, if machines learn to program each other we may end up with "Terminator" scenario.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Sure, jobs that require some high level of creativity are not likely to be stolen. Are you sure that interface design job is not endangered? There may be algorithms combining millions of elements, sizes, testing users behavior automatically.
Unknown said…
I wonder often if robots will steal our jobs and I always come to the same conclusion - not at all.

There are a lot of jobs in which robots will replace humans. But mostly it is physical work. It's easy to program digger to dig a hole, but it's impossible to digger think out how to do it - how deep, if we need some consent and so on.

Man is a thinking being and thanks to his intelligence, he always think out how to "outsmart" robots.

Anyway, somebody has to produce, improve and repair robots ;)
Dajana Kubica said…
I think that surgeons can also be replaced robots. Recently I saw a robot that stitched skin detached from grapes. I think my job is safe for now, because I work as a programmer, so maybe in the future I will be programming robots that will steal others job. I think that the government should change the system of teaching and set up for children's education in technical fields. Our world is moving toward replacing all professions, so the government should begin to wonder how to protect us against unemployment.
Unknown said…
Well some of jobs could be replaced by a robot or a special machine but under every special robot should stay human to cordinate work and result work of this machine. I work as Programmer and i have no worry about develop Intelligance because we get special rules what client want to create in their enterprise and none robot can create it and understand what to do.
Unknown said…
Some time ago I've read an article about a shop with self-checkout machines only. As it stated, shop was less popular than regular ones. Maybe it was because of lack of human interaction. In my opinion there aree some jobs that cannot be replaced due to this interaction factor. For example we could have by now fully automated waiters.

I'm glad to see technology replace some jobs. Humans are capable of far more complex jobs than being someones alarm clock. Using machines, we could have more people focusing on developing new technologies or helping others.

When it comes to my job, I'm not worried at all. I work as a coder, so I think my career is safe for a while.
kondrat said…
I think, that market will mutate, people will change their profession. Once the simplest jobs will be replaced by robots, there will be more positions for robot maintainers. Also cashier robots were not meant as replacement of human cashiers. In rush hours shopping malls are crowded, queues are long. Cashier machines were added as efficent (cost, and space) way to reduce queues.
Michał Pycek said…
I agree that we cannot stop and should not stop the technology development but at the end it is always people who create it, but also operate it. I think it is inevitable for the computers and complex operational systems to take over, otherwise we would basically stop our evolution and even take steps back.
Kacper Zaremba said…
I think that progress is inevitable, and we just have to get used to it. Technology replaces people in jobs, because it’s simply better and cheaper in some of them. On the other hand, technology creates a lot of jobs in other industries, like IT industry. I perceive it as a great improvement to the efficiency of economy, and we shouldn’t treat it as a problem.
Unknown said…
No one can stop the technological progress. Probably a better life strategy would be to adapt to current and future situation in the world and react fast on the needs of the job market.

Do you think your job will be stolen by robots?
I’m not sure that it’s a right way to put it “robots will still our job”. We create them to make our life easier and to replace us in a deprecated job positions. But there always will be a job to do for humans.
Unknown said…
We shouldn't stop technologies from development. As was said in the first part of the article, there always was a technical progress and people always lost their jobs because of that. I think in some cases, as self checkout machines, it is really great that people could be replaced. Personally, I prefer to use machines. The other problem is to make those machines work properly and don't make harm for people because something like self-driven truck can definitely make a lot of harm.
Andrzej Gulak said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
I don't think we should be concerned about machines replacing doctors, teachers or programmers. I think it's very unlikely to happen in our lifetime anyway. Plus would you really want a robot to teach your children like on elementary level? At that age a child should learn not only about scientific subjects but also about moral things - what is good or bad. I don't see robots doing these things unless we are talking about Westworld level of sophistication.
I think that it’s a very serious problem that might affect millions of people. Elon Musk recently proposed a solution to this problem. In his opinion government should pay your wage if robots take your job. The GDP made by robots would be distributed to those who lost their jobs because of them. Here you can read an article about his idea:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html
And here you can watch a video regarding this problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
The world is getting more complex on the daily basis. About 20 years ago there were no navigation in every phone, no one thought about electric cars, internet banking was something new and the Internet top speed was 56k. Now we have 4k Television, ultrafast Internet, phones that have power of few old computers, app for everything and all those things are getting really complex. Our way of life is changing - about 10 years ago e-shopping was not that popular and everyone thought traditional shops won't be available anymore in the future because of that. Some things are changing and will be changing but everything has a purpose. I can't tell what will happen in the next 10 years but there's one thing for sure - few will get better, few will get worse but we will find our way of living in it.
Moode said…
For me as a programmer, I don’t feel much threaten by being replaced with computers as I am the one who will have to take care of making the computers work more effectively. However, for other people it can be a problem. You can now see more and more often that computers are more effective and cheaper, which makes them replacing people. This has already started with small things years ago with such solutions as autopilots etc. Now it is growing more and more and I guess that it will stay this way. On the other hand, we have to think about all those who will loose their jobs because of the technology replacement. I thing that the government should help with this issue.
Bartosz Łyżwa said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bartosz Łyżwa said…
Nowadays it's impossible and pointless to stop or delay development of machines. In my opinion, we should think more how to use technology in the right way. It's certain that many people will loose their jobs but I guess it doesn't have to make adverse effects. The best example is the "Doctor" part of your presentation. Robots are great to repeat boring actions, do not have to eat, talk or event go out for a cigarette. They are better than us in many things.
Unknown said…
I don't think that people some day will be replaced totally by computers or robots. Though some jobs might be taken over by them, they will still need human supervision of some kind. Besides, I am sure that new jobs will be created and people will be needed for them too.
KamilG said…
I'm sure that all profesions like a computer sience always will offer people more chances to have a job. Unfortunately, other professions enlisted in this article like metro driver, even sales representative, might be superseded by robots. If it's a tragedy? I'm not sure. As history shows us, new technologies always bring new professions, new job positions. An great example is "knocker-uppers". They were replaced by alarm clocks. But thanks to this invention many engineers, common employees, especially watch maker, found the job.
Yes, that thing already progresses and you'd need to be a fool to think that robots will not replace many current job positions - that is already happening since at least 90s. Fact is, I don't feel terrified, as situation of actual programmers will only improve, even though more and more people are available in this profession. It can however be seriously hard for less skilled people, especially those not IT-savy, as more and more corporations will prefer to hire a robot rather than actual human. Together with over-population problem, that can have pretty dramatic effects on long-run, hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm afraid it will be.
As you mentioned the progress is unstoppable and its natural flow of actions.
I think that computers should replace humans in some jobs as they can do some thing a lot faster and more precise than human beings. It is only matter of a time when it will happen.
On the other hand this will produce more job positions as there will be needed more people to supervise and control these machines.
Unknown said…
I still wonder when machines would be able to program games, applications and other machines. It's probably quite far away, but who knows.

This could actually be the end of the world, after all "machines making other machines" is pretty much the plot to Terminator.
Wojtek Kania said…
I think there is no problem. In 18th century people invented steam engine. Many people lost job. But they must change their jobs. It was very hard time for many of them, but for a whole it was amazing invention. I think it will be very similar situation when artificial intelligence will grow up.
Adam Nowak said…
Using robots to do jobs that humans are doing right now will be only good. Autonomous robots will work for us for free, that means we, as humans, will be needed to do the jobs that are less dangerous and more interesting. I beleive that AI will cause another industrial revolution, improving the average quality of our lives.
Unknown said…
t depends on what kind of work we speak, but the truth is that the world is moving towards reducing physical work performed by people and to increase labor market for researchers, IT specialist, managers, intellectuals and artists. All this we can do physically, once machines will do for us. The same will be with information search, analysis of our nature and the world around us, and even software development.
Unknown said…
Sure the job of graphic designers requires creativity, the main problem is a lot of clients don't get it. They believe stock photos look great, they're simple to acquire and they're cheap, so why they should pay a photographer...? The same is with totally everything, they prepare "animations" in PowerPoint, thus later they're surprised that the same movements need more time to animate in after effects and they won't pay the amount of money we want because they say: "Look I've already done it myself in PowerPoint so I know it's really simple and I just need another format of it". That's a real plague of present times. The technology is meant for everybody and people grow with no respect for the creative work of designers. After all they're designers also, aren't they? They could take perfect photos with they're phones, so why should they pay for that?
Well as it already happened many times throughout history, some jobs will become obsolete, but new ones will be created. Free market will take care of people in a way that some jobs will becme more popular, because they will be better paid and some will naturally die out, because there won't be much money in them.
Unknown said…
What do you think about this problem?
I think thats an important problem, many people afraid of losing their jobs. However, the world in highly and medium developed appears demographic.
Do you think your job will be stolen by robots?
No, I am a graphic designer- so this a kind of art work. The robot don't have a good sense of aesthetics.
Should government protect people from tech unemployment?
Yes. Many people of banking, economic and sales department - many company decided to describe own program, which replace human work, leave them without a job. A good idea would be to create a life insurance unemployment.
Unknown said…
Our world is changing every day and nothing could exist forever. We should accommodate to the new circumstances. When I was finishing school everybody wanted to study economy and law. Now young people tend to get IT education. Of course it is sad for some people to realize that they are not so needed as before, but all this professional changes happen quite slow for us to have the time to find the way out. No problem at all. especially today, when you can learn everything.

And to tell the truth, I would still prefer the human-drivers and doctors.
Unknown said…
There are many jobs that are disappearing or have already disappeared because we don't need them anymore.
Of course I find it sad that a lot of people might loose their jobs due to automatization and we can't expect them all to easily adapt to the new situation and reorganize their whole lives.
Still, I'm for automatization of repetitive tasks. For example - I love self checkouts at stores, and I don't think the regular cashiers are going anywhere considering how often the self checkouts are completely empty while there are queues for normal cash registers - I think not everyone is used to automation.

Machines will always (well... hopefully) be accompanied by humans, because they are not entirely reliable and foolproof and servicing those machines always creates new jobs.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Well, I would trust AI more than a human driver - computer may check 1000+ possible situations per second and can't fall asleep:) Unfortunately for workers with repetitive tasks machines seem to be more reliable.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
That's an optimistic point. While graphic designer job is much less endangered than physical jobs it depends on the development of AI. You can check Prisma app, it doesn't create artworks from scratch, but it's able to re-paint existing photos using neural networks and it look pretty awesome.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Sure, it a matter of quality, but there may be good automated alternatives. For example if you need a simple homepage you can use one of the numerous services, select a pretty modern design and customize it without paying developers and graphic designers, so it's happening already.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I totally agree with you, changing education system is really important. Government should do a lot of research and prepare specialists depending on demand and trends.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Sure, but it may be a single engineer for 100 diggers instead of 100 digger drivers:) Anyway, if you're an engineer you should be less worried.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
That's true, but waiters represent a specific culture, so getting rid of waiters would be like replacing actors with machines. In case of cashiers it's just a requirement, before self-checkout machines there was no other way to buy anything.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Thanks, I didn't know that. I thought that currently this these machines are just being tested - if these machines cost less in a long term they are meant to replace human cashiers.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
People seem to be less reliable than machines, people need to eat, sleep, pay attention, people can be drunk while driving. At this point I would trust a robot driver/surgeon/etc. more:)
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
That's true, they are meant to make our life easier from the customer point of view, but from the endangered worker point of view these machines are evil.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I would not want it for sure, I think that human interaction is really important for children. I guess professions related to required human interaction are less endangered too.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Thanks for sharing! That seems like a good idea, but economy is unpredictable - in my opinion this may cause huge inflation since almost everyone will get paid for nothing.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I also thought of it as of a fully post-industrial society where intellectual labor is the only type of labor, but if this transition happens too fast it could be a disaster.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Surely it will improve our everyday life, but the main issue is that it breaks the current economy basics - people have to pay for using technologies, technologies take their jobs, they don't get paid, they can't pay for technologies.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I agree, replacing doctors would be a good thing from a patient's point of view. Doctors have to study a lot, then keep up with the new information and keep this knowledge. Machines may be better in this case.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Well, it might be not bad if it happens slowly, if it happens too fast a lot of people will have to adapt and we may witness 21th century Luddites.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Yes, at this level of AI development there may be an issue - why machines need people at all?:) There's a good quote about this issue: "I'm not scared of a computer passing the turing test... I'm terrified of one that intentionally fails it.".
I study IT so I find it hard to believe that robots can replace me in my job. Of course there is more and more jobs that disappear because of advanced technology. It is sad for people who loose theirs jobs but we all know that robots are much more effective and faster. They don't need rest, food or sleep. Automated world is our technology. But as far I'm concern I'm not scared of loosing my job. My job is to make those robots, to program them so I don't think I should be afraid of future replacement.

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