We are seeing a revolutionary change in the world of technology and more frequently than ever before, new inventions in the field of technology are making it easier to replace human beings. A popular study published by Oxford University in 2013 predicted that in 20 years, 47 percent of the jobs will be automated in the United States. Automation can threaten to eliminate factory workers, retail employees, cashiers etc.
But there isn’t any reason to panic because according to some experts a lot of these apocalyptic reports are overblown. And quite often these reports can slow the process of innovation. To clear any further doubts, two economists(Robert Atkinson and John Wu) from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation published a report titled “False Alarmism: Technological Disruption and the U.S. Labor Market, 1850–2015.”
According to Atkinson and Wu’s methodology, they focused their research on identifying increases or decreases in occupations that could be attributed to technological innovations. For example, the number of household workers decreased with the invention of the washing machine but at the same time many more workers were hired as mechanics by Ford to produce the Model T. Therefore, Atkinson and Wu reached three conclusions based on this methodology: -
1: Total number of jobs has changed very little over the past 20 years.
2: Growth in existing industries has made up for jobs lost to automation. For example, a factory replaced workers with machines on the production side but invested the money it saved into new jobs in sales and marketing.
3: U.S. lost the fewest jobs to automation between 2010 to 2015.
“The fact is that there are waves of historical change in technology; they come, they go, there is nothing inevitable about them,” Robert Friedel, professor of the history of technology and science at the University of Maryland, said in an interview with MeriTalk, a website geared towards government IT experts. “We have absolutely no reason, I would argue, to suggest that that pattern is somehow permanently broken.”
The fear that robots will take over all the jobs from humans is bad for technological progress itself. The anti-tech attitude is not new. Luddites destroyed machines in England from 1811 to 1813, to protest against textile automation. In 2014, taxi drivers in Paris slashed the tires of Uber driver because they were losing business to their new tech-enabled competition. Some governments around the world have banned Uber altogether so that the traditional taxi drivers don’t lose their jobs.
Possible Solutions
The government has to initiate the change for the coming future. Legislators have to consider new policies that will best mitigate the disruption caused by robots in all the industries affected. The government should also spend money to bolster education programs that train workers for the jobs that are more likely to exist in the future. Bill Gates has suggested taxing Robots.
Article Link: https://futurism.com/technology-destroy-jobs/
I really enjoyed reading this post. The loss of jobs resulting from automation was one of the factors that lead me to choose Management Information Systems as my major. I wanted to be the person utilizing the automation not being replaced by it. I recently did a tech briefing on Internet of Things which goes hand-in-hand with this post. The theory is eventually everything will be "smart" reducing the necessity for humans to do much of the work in the task at hand. This could would also add to the loss of jobs. I have also read a few articles about theorizing eventually the world will have automation to run the automation. This would lead a sort of renaissance. Jobs would no longer exist and art and other abstract things would become valued. Lets hope none of this happens right.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Recently, there have been a lot of news talking about artificial intelligence stealing human jobs. What I think is really interesting is that some industry experts say that even some IT-related job which is in extremely high demand now such as data analytics/science will be taken over by AI down the road. I wonder to what extent AI will replace human in the future, and I think we always have to keep a close eye on technological improvement in whatever industry we work so that we can keep up with and learn advancement in technology, adjust our skills, and improve accordingly not to have our jobs replaced by AI.
ReplyDeleteHere is one of the articles I read.
"Would Artificial intelligence replace Analytic jobs – An Industry perspective"
http://sumo.ly/I6lD via @analyticsindiam
This is pretty interesting! This has been such a popular topic in recent years because of the insane advancement in technology. We all have personally seen human jobs being replaced by technology with ideas and machines such as self-checkout at grocery stores,manufacturing devices in factories, automated customer support, etc. but I personally think that technology is helping companies expand by tapping into areas and a pace that would not be possible with just human effort. For example, Amazon uses transporting bots to move around boxes at the company's warehouses and this took away jobs from the warehouse workers but also allowed Amazon to expand their size and reach other industries that open up more jobs there. Overall, I see a shift in jobs but this again varies from situation to situation and industries as well. A big one next in line is the growth in self-driving cars and trucks that could take away jobs from drivers and transportation personnel. I wonder how technology is going to change jobs in other industries moving forward.
ReplyDeleteGreat information @Angad Randhawa. I think this is the most hot topic between my friends this 2017. I even watched a BBC documentary talking about the progress of using super computer to replace many jobs of people in Silicon Valley(BBC Two - Secrets Of Silicon Valley). So far some people in Silicon Valley people believes people would always find new demand, build new business model, and create new jobs for people. However, the ability of computer has grown into a different "dimension" in recent years. i have no ability to predict the future, but i just know one should choose a career that need some soft-skills, people-skills that cannot be replaced easily.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting post! I have read a lot of similar posts on Facebook and Linkedin that give similar viewpoints. Many jobs and careers will for sure be taken by computers with the great advancement of technology. But another viewpoint is that because of the increase of technology many jobs and careers will also be created as well. I don't think anyone of us will be greatly affected by this and we all should all be fine. Great post!
ReplyDelete