The new jobs are in the middle of the man and the machine
Published on : Monday 30-11--0001
Are robots a boon or a threat to human beings, especially when it comes to jobs?
Contrary to what all the sci-fi movies suggest, robots are not a threat to humans, and when it comes to jobs, robots will create more opportunity and better jobs for people. Just like in the industrial revolution over a hundred years ago, the use of machines improved the quality of life and the type of jobs people performed. Robots will help us do the same. We will become the “curators” and managers of work performed by robots, instead of having to do repetitive tasks ourselves. Take for example agricultural jobs, like cutting lettuce. Cutting lettuce is back breaking work, and if you cut lettuce for a living, you are guaranteed to have back, knee and other joint and muscular problems. Already companies have created lettuce cutting robots, which use a high pressure stream of water to cut the lettuce and then roll the lettuce up a conveyor belt onto a platform for a person to put in boxes, sitting in an ergonomically designed chair underneath an umbrella canopy. Because of the improvements in efficiency and speed of this process, the operators of this robot get paid more and they produce more at the same time, and there are no more work-related injuries. The same cause and effect can be seen in Amazon’s fulfilment centres, where they use robots to do the manual work of running around and collecting products. Because they can do this faster and more efficiently, there are more jobs created than eliminated through the use of robots. As long as robots are not used for evil and provided with guns and weaponry, we will not see threat, but instead only opportunity!
Is the robots-taking-jobs argument exaggerated, as there are still jobs waiting to be filled?
As mentioned above, robots are taking care of the boring jobs that no one wants to do. Take for example a Service Robot working on the floor of a manufacturing facility. These robots perform boring tasks like sorting parts, moving boxes, handling circuit boards in fabrication processes. These repetitive tasks humans are not good at and get tired of doing very quickly, whereas robots are happy to repeat, repeat and repeat very precisely, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. When it comes to jobs to be filled, there is a growing area of jobs that include training and managing robots and “robots” not taking a physical form, meaning artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and platforms. The new jobs are in the middle of the man and the machine. These jobs are being created where these technologies are being applied to many industries, from precision healthcare to digital agriculture, from supply chain integrity through to legal informatics. In every case, there is a need for people with intrinsic industry knowledge to train and manage these systems.
While robots are adapting fast to new roles, are their human counterparts slow in doing so?
Robots only know what they are told and taught. And they can only do what they have been designed to do. For many years computers have been faster than their human counterparts. Robots are not magically adapting to new roles. Present day robotics are very simple and are not adaptable in the way that you suggest. They are literally mechanical devices that have been designed to perform a function. Even general purpose robots like Atlas from Boston Dynamics are only able to do what they have been programmed to do. Right now the state of artificial intelligence is still very basic. For example, an AI algorithm can train itself to play a video game and play it perfectly, but that algorithm can’t do anything else; it can’t water the garden or cook dinner or hack into your bank account! We are very far away from a “general AI” that could do anything or learn something new without any training or guidance. The media has done a good job of amplifying the sci-fi movie notion that robots and AI are super-human, we are many decades away from this being even close to reality!
Compared to the advanced economies, robot penetration in India is still low. Will there be a dramatic change in the near future?
Yes there will be a dramatic change in the future, how near that future is, is the difficult part to predict. The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Most people would be shocked to see how automated some warehouse facilities are. There are specialised robots and machines working in warehouses that supplant human work already, but we don’t see this in the public, yet. Soon enough, especially in the area of autonomous vehicles, the public will begin to see this new reality and this will bring home the dramatic change in awareness of these technologies.
Finally, will man and robot co-exist in harmony?
Yes absolutely! We already have “robots" doing boring tasks at home like washing our dishes and vacuuming the floors. As with all sophisticated technologies, it is up to us to decide how we use them. Humans will be responsible for how these technologies are used for good versus evil. Humans have the ultimate control and we will define our own destiny of co-existence with robots, artificial intelligence systems, and all of these emerging technologies.
Justin Baird brings over twenty years of management and high tech experience, in areas ranging from research and development engineering, analog and digital signal processing, embedded systems development, product management, high speed digital networks, large scale entertainment systems, mobile and web application deployment, and interactive multimedia installation technologies. He holds two US Patents, four pending US Patents, and has written a number of technical papers within these areas of research. Justin regularly presents on subjects pertaining to digital, media and marketing futures to both local and international audiences.