Introduction
Automation of work can lead to an increase in the number of jobs, new job opportunities, and overall prosperity in the future. Horror stories about automation are all over the place these days, especially when it comes to working. Not a week goes by without another prophecy about how robots will replace everyone because machines can do human work much better than people. It is not difficult to understand why employees and company leaders are panicking. However, only some things are so simple when using artificial intelligence technology.
In other words, the penetration of robots into all spheres of human life is inevitable, and their replacement of human specialists is only a matter of time. This shift is predetermined by the second wave of automation, which focuses on artificial cognition, cheap sensors, machine learning, and distributed intelligence. Such an overall automation process will affect all types of employment: from manual to intellectual labor. When people start working with robots, their tasks will inevitably merge, and soon the work that people do will become a task for robots. It is hard even to imagine a new job that will be in the area of responsibility for people. This study will analyze the various types of work and the possible challenges of replacing human labor.
Jobs that Humans Can Do, but Robots Do Better
Humans can weave, but automated looms produce perfect fabric at a meager cost. The only reason one can buy a handmade thing today is if someone wants it to have a twist due to imperfection due to human production. However, probably few people want to have a car with a twist. It is difficult to positively evaluate the failed equipment when driving 110 kilometers per hour on the freeway (Kaplan, 2021). From here, it is quite a logical conclusion: the less human factor in the production of cars, the better.
Robots Instead of Pilots
However, when more complex duties are required, people are still mistakenly convinced that robots and computers cannot be trusted. That is why humanity is so reluctant to admit that robots successfully perform intellectual tasks – in some cases, even more efficiently than with mechanical actions. The computerized autopilot system can control the Boeing 787 for the duration of the flight, except for a seven-minute flight (Kaplan, 2021). The pilot is in the cockpit to fly the aircraft for those seven minutes and beyond, just in case, while the time they are needed is rapidly shrinking.
Computers in Data Collection
Today, in most cases, computers perform tax calculations, X-ray analysis, and evidence collection for preliminary hearings, all of which were once carried out by highly paid specialists. In the 1990s, computer programs for assessing mortgage loans completely replaced people (Kaplan, 2021). Man unconditionally accepted the fact that robots work in industrial production. Soon, humanity will agree that they can be effectively used in the service sector and the performance of intellectual tasks.
Jobs that Humans Cannot Do but Robots Can
A person cannot make a single screw alone, while an automated mechanism can produce a thousand identical screws per hour. Without an automation process, we cannot cope with the production of a single computer chip (Kaplan, 2021). This work requires a degree of precision, concentration, and attention that people, by their very nature, are incapable of. In the same way, no person or even a group of people, regardless of their level of education, can quickly search through all the web pages in the world and find one with the cost of eggs in Kathmandu yesterday (Susskind, 2021). Every time someone presses the search button, they enlist the help of a robot to do something that humans cannot do on their own. Man does not give robots a good job; in most cases, they perform one that people would never be able to handle; without robots, it would have remained unfulfilled.
Jobs that Previously People Could Not Even Imagine
This is the most significant advantage: today, with the help of robots and computer intelligence, a person can do what 150 years ago he could not even imagine. One can get rid of a tumor in their intestines with a navel operation, videotape their wedding, fly a rover, or print on fabric a drawing that a friend sent in an e-mail (Susskind, 2021). People on a million new cases that would have confused and shocked the farmers of the 1800s. These new activities are not just things that were previously difficult to do. Instead, they belong to dreams that have become a reality due to the machines’ capabilities to realize them. This is the work that the machines have created. Every successful automation process stimulates the creation of new jobs that one could not even imagine without introducing automation into one’s life.
The Inevitability of New Work
Many new tasks that have arisen due to automation are impossible without it. Today, when people have search engines, they have an assistant who can be entrusted with a thousand tasks. From the point of view of technological development, there is no difference between people and machines: technology provides new opportunities and options for both (Susskind, 2021). It can be assumed that people in the highest-paid professions in 2050 will use machines and automated processes that have not even been invented. In other words, today, people cannot say what this activity will be because they do not yet know the technologies that will make it possible. Robots create new work that humans cannot even imagine yet.
Jobs that Only Humans Can Do
The only thing that only people can do, and that is not yet available to robots and will not be available for a long time, is to decide what else people want to do. This is not a clever play on words: our desires are inspired by our previous inventions, and this question comes up repeatedly (Wilson & Daugherty, 2018). When robots and mechanical devices do the bulk of human work so that people can quickly satisfy their basic needs for food, clothing, and a roof over their heads, we move to a new level of freedom.
The Uniqueness of Human Labor
The Industrial Revolution did much more than increase the average human lifespan. It allowed a much more significant percentage of people to decide that they would become ballerinas, professional musicians, mathematicians, athletes, fashion designers, yoga instructors, science fiction writers, or even people with a one-of-a-kind profession on their business cards (Wilson & Daugherty, 2018). Due to the help of machines, a person can engage in these professions, although, in time, machines will replace them in most of them.
Possible Challenges that May Appear
Significant substitution of manual labor threatens those industries with no requirements for workers’ education, qualifications, or age. According to the international economic organization, risk percentage varies depending on the country. For example, the probability of mass automation in Slovenia, Turkey, Lithuania, Greece, and Japan is 50-70%, while in Norway, New Zealand, Finland, and the United States, the figure is below 10% (Wilson & Daugherty, 2018). In the future, artificial intelligence will be able to replace salespeople, cashiers, machinists, bank employees, and call center, employees. High risk for other specialties, work which involves monotonous actions, collection or analysis of data. For 2-3 years of operation in production, robots pay off and begin to make a profit, and the annual maintenance of mechanisms costs 12-15% cheaper than workers’ wages for the same period (Wilson & Daugherty, 2018). However, at the same time, the departure of old professions promises the emergence of new ones, so the situation, in this case, is a stalemate.
Conclusion
Summing up, one can conclude that the replacement of human labor by technology is inevitable. It is certain that in this process, some professions will be performed automatically. Many people may lose their jobs because of this, but on the other hand, this process will also create new jobs. Of course, new knowledge will be needed to master these works, but in the era of active development of technology, it is necessary to develop side-by-side with them.
In the future, everyone will have the opportunity to have a personal robot, but the mere fact of owning one does not guarantee success. Instead, success awaits those who can establish a collaborative work process with robots and machines. The geographic location of manufacturing clusters will become an essential factor, not because of differences in labor costs but because of differences in human professional experience.
References
Kaplan, A. (2021). Artificial Intelligence (AI): When humans and machines might have to coexist. AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives, 21–32. Web.
Susskind, D. (2021). A world without work: Technology, automation, and how we should respond. Picador.
Wilson, H. J., & Daugherty, P. R. (2018). Collaborative intelligence: Humans and AI are joining forces. Harvard Business Review, 96(4), 114–123. Web.