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?
Do you think your job will be stolen by robots?
Should government protect people from tech unemployment?
Comments
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.
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
I am studying IT so technology development is my area, therefore the robots, won't stole my job.
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 ;)
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.
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.
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
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.
This could actually be the end of the world, after all "machines making other machines" is pretty much the plot to Terminator.
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.
And to tell the truth, I would still prefer the human-drivers and doctors.
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.