The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 9:07 am
As the first Terminator film opens, Sarah Connor is working as a waitress when Arnold Schwarzenegger's Cyberdyne Systems Terminator Model 101 is sent back in time with orders to kill her. But what if, instead of trying to kill her, Skynet's killer android approaches the owner of the family-run restaurant Big Jeff's, where Sarah works, and offers to take his shifts for lower pay, faster work, and fewer mistakes? Out of work and unable to support herself, Sarah drops out of college and decides that maybe raising a family in this economic situation isn't so smart.
This is, in some ways, the biggest immediate threat that many fear when it comes to automation: It's not a robopocalypse brought on by superintelligence, but an era of technological unemployment.
The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
Some very smart people have been sounding the alarm for years. A 2013 study by the Oxford Martin School suggested that around 47% of jobs in the US could be automated in the next two decades, which are now just 12 years away from the study’s publication. The authors suggested that in the first wave, clerical and administrative support workers, as well as workers in production occupations, would be eliminated. In the second wave, all tasks involving finger dexterity, feedback, observation and working in confined spaces would be gobbled up by software.
Why are there still so many jobs?
To date, this has not happened in such catastrophic numbers. In fact, hiring by the big tech companies that have invested the most in automation has outpaced many other industries. Amazon, which once laid off its human writers in favor of algorithmic recommendation systems and is constantly working on robotizing its warehouses, hired an additional 175,000 people when the coronavirus shutdown began in March of last year. Other tech companies, like Netflix, have not slowed down hiring either, even at a time when COVID was wrecking many industries.
The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
These companies have, of course, benefited from a very difficult time in global history. Streaming media companies, communication companies like Zoom, device makers like Apple, and e-commerce stores like Amazon were perfectly placed to benefit from the world being stuck at home. But this illustrates the complexity of the situation. Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and other potentially human-replacing technological infrastructure have made these “unicorns” more unicorn-like, which, in turn, meant they could hire more people.
These effects may seem counterintuitive. In an essay titled “ Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation ,” MIT economics professor David Autor analyzed the quadrupling of ATMs between 1995 and 2010, and how it affected the number of tellers employed by banks. An ATM is, of course, not the same thing as an advanced robot, but one might assume that 300,000 additional ATMs for dispensing money would lead to a decline in the number of people employed to do so.
In fact, employment of bank tellers increased by 50,000 people during that same period. ATMs freed up more workers to focus on what Autor calls “relationship banking.” The author noted that technology meant that these workers were no longer primarily “tellers” but rather… salespeople, building relationships with customers and introducing them to additional banking services, such as credit cards, loans, and investment products.
Augment, not replace
This is the great promise of tools like AI: they won’t replace humans, but augment them. We’re told they’ll eliminate boring, dirty, and dangerous jobs, and allow humans to focus on higher-value tasks. If this is true, that’s great how to get usa phone number No one is lamenting that technology (and civilization in general) did away with child chimney sweeps in Victorian England. Perhaps we won’t be so saddened by the fact that certain meaningless tasks requiring data or dirty work — not to mention potentially deadly ones — are being taken over by robots.
The makeup of jobs changes over time. In 1800, 90% of Americans lived and worked on farms. Today, the vast majority live and work in cities. A recent MIT study, “The Jobs of the Future,” found that 63% of today’s jobs did not exist just 80 years ago, in the early 1940s. Since 1990, more than 1,500 new occupational roles have emerged as official job categories, including software engineers, SEO experts, and database administrators. Many of these are tech-related, but other types of work are “high-touch” roles built around personal interaction that seem only to become more important as our lives become more digital.
An increasing number of jobs are likely to be hybrid jobs where humans work alongside machines. In some cases, this will involve technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) tools, which can sit on the desktop of human workers and provide them with guidance on how to do their jobs better, such as prioritizing tasks or meeting regulations in compliance-intensive occupations.
The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
Meanwhile, tech companies are benefiting from what’s called AAI, or “artificial artificial intelligence,” in which humans help perform tasks that AI is currently incapable of doing. Twitter, for example, employs human workers on contract, called judges, whose job is to interpret the meaning of different trending search terms. Meanwhile, in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, robots like those made by Boston-based Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon nearly a decade ago) are used to carry shelves and deliver them to the human “picker,” who then picks out the right item for packaging.
The future of employment
The big question is what all this will mean for human employment in the future. As AI gets smarter, more tasks that currently require human intervention can be automated. There are AI robots capable of performing certain tasks that were once considered worthy of a high-equity job, such as a lawyer. Right now, human drivers can be hired to supervise AI driving autonomous vehicles, giving those people a better, more sociable work schedule where they don’t have to be on the road for days at a time.
But will they always do this? Probably not. The same goes for picking up items from Amazon warehouses and, potentially one day, delivering packages to customers' doors. But as some of these low-hanging fruits are picked, humans will be able to take over all the things that machines can't.
Automation alone isn’t going to steal jobs as some fear. It’s a much more complex picture than that simple way of looking at things suggests. It will dominate some jobs, but it will also usher in new forms of employment, many (though not all) related to developing, maintaining, or working with this new technological infrastructure. As the tech giants’ hiring spree and the ATM research demonstrate, the idea that companies investing in technology are necessarily bad for human workers is not a foregone conclusion.
What technology can do—and probably will do—is exacerbate societal trends. About four decades ago, many American workers experienced a divergence in the trajectory of wage increases and productivity growth. Technology, as many have noted, will likely contribute to hollowing out the middle classes, pushing some up in both income and job quality, while making things harder for others. It will also mean a society in which participants are constantly retraining and upgrading, in part to stay on the right side of the wave of technological substitution. But this picture is far more nuanced than is sometimes presented.
The American historian Melvin Kranzberg famously said: “Technology is neither good nor bad; it is not neutral.” The same can be said of its likely impact on the labor market. It is complex. But where there is chaos, there is also opportunity.
This is, in some ways, the biggest immediate threat that many fear when it comes to automation: It's not a robopocalypse brought on by superintelligence, but an era of technological unemployment.
The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
Some very smart people have been sounding the alarm for years. A 2013 study by the Oxford Martin School suggested that around 47% of jobs in the US could be automated in the next two decades, which are now just 12 years away from the study’s publication. The authors suggested that in the first wave, clerical and administrative support workers, as well as workers in production occupations, would be eliminated. In the second wave, all tasks involving finger dexterity, feedback, observation and working in confined spaces would be gobbled up by software.
Why are there still so many jobs?
To date, this has not happened in such catastrophic numbers. In fact, hiring by the big tech companies that have invested the most in automation has outpaced many other industries. Amazon, which once laid off its human writers in favor of algorithmic recommendation systems and is constantly working on robotizing its warehouses, hired an additional 175,000 people when the coronavirus shutdown began in March of last year. Other tech companies, like Netflix, have not slowed down hiring either, even at a time when COVID was wrecking many industries.
The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
These companies have, of course, benefited from a very difficult time in global history. Streaming media companies, communication companies like Zoom, device makers like Apple, and e-commerce stores like Amazon were perfectly placed to benefit from the world being stuck at home. But this illustrates the complexity of the situation. Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and other potentially human-replacing technological infrastructure have made these “unicorns” more unicorn-like, which, in turn, meant they could hire more people.
These effects may seem counterintuitive. In an essay titled “ Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation ,” MIT economics professor David Autor analyzed the quadrupling of ATMs between 1995 and 2010, and how it affected the number of tellers employed by banks. An ATM is, of course, not the same thing as an advanced robot, but one might assume that 300,000 additional ATMs for dispensing money would lead to a decline in the number of people employed to do so.
In fact, employment of bank tellers increased by 50,000 people during that same period. ATMs freed up more workers to focus on what Autor calls “relationship banking.” The author noted that technology meant that these workers were no longer primarily “tellers” but rather… salespeople, building relationships with customers and introducing them to additional banking services, such as credit cards, loans, and investment products.
Augment, not replace
This is the great promise of tools like AI: they won’t replace humans, but augment them. We’re told they’ll eliminate boring, dirty, and dangerous jobs, and allow humans to focus on higher-value tasks. If this is true, that’s great how to get usa phone number No one is lamenting that technology (and civilization in general) did away with child chimney sweeps in Victorian England. Perhaps we won’t be so saddened by the fact that certain meaningless tasks requiring data or dirty work — not to mention potentially deadly ones — are being taken over by robots.
The makeup of jobs changes over time. In 1800, 90% of Americans lived and worked on farms. Today, the vast majority live and work in cities. A recent MIT study, “The Jobs of the Future,” found that 63% of today’s jobs did not exist just 80 years ago, in the early 1940s. Since 1990, more than 1,500 new occupational roles have emerged as official job categories, including software engineers, SEO experts, and database administrators. Many of these are tech-related, but other types of work are “high-touch” roles built around personal interaction that seem only to become more important as our lives become more digital.
An increasing number of jobs are likely to be hybrid jobs where humans work alongside machines. In some cases, this will involve technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA) tools, which can sit on the desktop of human workers and provide them with guidance on how to do their jobs better, such as prioritizing tasks or meeting regulations in compliance-intensive occupations.
The future of automation: Robots aren't going to take your job
Meanwhile, tech companies are benefiting from what’s called AAI, or “artificial artificial intelligence,” in which humans help perform tasks that AI is currently incapable of doing. Twitter, for example, employs human workers on contract, called judges, whose job is to interpret the meaning of different trending search terms. Meanwhile, in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, robots like those made by Boston-based Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon nearly a decade ago) are used to carry shelves and deliver them to the human “picker,” who then picks out the right item for packaging.
The future of employment
The big question is what all this will mean for human employment in the future. As AI gets smarter, more tasks that currently require human intervention can be automated. There are AI robots capable of performing certain tasks that were once considered worthy of a high-equity job, such as a lawyer. Right now, human drivers can be hired to supervise AI driving autonomous vehicles, giving those people a better, more sociable work schedule where they don’t have to be on the road for days at a time.
But will they always do this? Probably not. The same goes for picking up items from Amazon warehouses and, potentially one day, delivering packages to customers' doors. But as some of these low-hanging fruits are picked, humans will be able to take over all the things that machines can't.
Automation alone isn’t going to steal jobs as some fear. It’s a much more complex picture than that simple way of looking at things suggests. It will dominate some jobs, but it will also usher in new forms of employment, many (though not all) related to developing, maintaining, or working with this new technological infrastructure. As the tech giants’ hiring spree and the ATM research demonstrate, the idea that companies investing in technology are necessarily bad for human workers is not a foregone conclusion.
What technology can do—and probably will do—is exacerbate societal trends. About four decades ago, many American workers experienced a divergence in the trajectory of wage increases and productivity growth. Technology, as many have noted, will likely contribute to hollowing out the middle classes, pushing some up in both income and job quality, while making things harder for others. It will also mean a society in which participants are constantly retraining and upgrading, in part to stay on the right side of the wave of technological substitution. But this picture is far more nuanced than is sometimes presented.
The American historian Melvin Kranzberg famously said: “Technology is neither good nor bad; it is not neutral.” The same can be said of its likely impact on the labor market. It is complex. But where there is chaos, there is also opportunity.