iAm No Longer Needed

Everyone will probably agree that the automobile was a very practical, economic-growth-stimulating innovation. Everyone, but the horses who saw their jobs dramatically decline over the span of just a few decades until a horse-drawn carriage was nothing more than a tourist trap in Central Park. But I mean, they’re horses, so no need to dwell on their unemployment rates.

We love innovation and tend to storm off to the nearest Apple store whenever they release a smaller version of a device we already own (will the iPad Mini 5 finally be presented on March 21st?). We’re in total awe with drones and Google glass, we love that our car can park (let alone drive!) itself and that we can now flirt with Siri.

All this innovation makes the economy more efficient, our jobs easier, our lives more comfortable and therefore surely the world a better place in general.

The only thing is, in all our brilliancy, we’ve probably overestimated ourselves a bit.

We are actually not all that unique, not all that smart, not all that efficient, and in fact not all that irreplaceable when compared to, you guessed it, robots.

Google’s robot-driven car hit a bus a few days ago in Mountain View, California, and the papers loved it. By comparison though, people are responsible for 40.000 car accidents on a yearly basis in the US alone. Google’s car only needs to beat that statistic for it to be a success. And if they manage to do that — which they will if only for the fact that robots don’t text & drive — it will transform the entire transportation industry.

20 million jobs in the US currently involve moving things from A to B, that’s 16% of total US employment. You can do the math here. Do you think a union will be able to win the human-argument in the face of stone cold money and efficiency?

Alright, if robots are really going to take over, surely it’s just the manual labor and lower paying jobs? As a lawyer, doctor, HR professional or Wall Street Guru you must be on the safe side right? Wrong again (see, you’re not all that smart!).

We like to believe all lawyers are like Harvey Specter and all doctors like McDreamy — but in fact most of the lawyering doesn’t happen in courtrooms and most surgeries are quite standard.

But whereas lawyers and doctors need to continuously update their knowledge and skills and can only do so in a limited capacity, robots can learn in real-time from every other robot on the planet, with the added bonus that they’ll never have an off-day or have to fall back on their “better judgment”, which is nothing more than a nice word for an educated guess.

In the financial world, technology has already made a widespread introduction now that the trading floor consists mostly of computers talking to each other and, we could argue, we’re probably better off for it. At least I haven’t heard of a Libor scandal caused by greedy computers (yet).

And if your job is to find out what drives people, where their ambitions and skills lie and creating a successful job match based on that information… You do realize it’s only a matter of time until the dating website software ventures into HR?

Don’t be fooled into thinking creative jobs are out of scope here. Gastronomy chefs are experimenting with 3D food printing saying it allows them to create dishes they couldn’t create by hand (…). Music can be composed 24 hours a day by robot Mrs Emily Howell, and us poor humans can’t tell the difference between her and Justin’s new hit.

And as a final kicker: new research by the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that people (remember them?) are actually more likely to trust a robot in case of an emergency over their own judgment and common sense.

So, while you’re counting down the hours ’til the weekend, (something that a robot would never do, by the way) just be happy you still have a job.

And if you want to keep procrastinating and feel utterly useless (again, insert the robot argument here…) watch this 15-minute video “Humans Need Not Apply”.

Are we slowly becoming the horses of the 21st century?