The future is robotic, in case you hadn’t noticed
Sometimes it’s hard to work out what’s going on in technology, and where it’s taking us. But one thing is clear: we are moving toward a world where all the tasks that people, for whatever reason, don’t want to do, will be carried out by robots.
The most obvious starting place is with the so-called 4D jobs: Dangerous, Dull, Dirty, or Demeaning. There are still a lot of people whose job falls into one of those categories and who are grateful to be employed, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t growing pressure to replace them: driving a car may be fun, but when you have to do it for hours on end to get people or goods from one place to another, the best thing for everyone, surely, is that a machine does it, because apart from anything else, it will do it more efficiently and more safely, and anyone who disputes this doesn’t understand how technology works.
The same goes for supermarket cashiers: theirs is dull and repetitive work, as is what delivery drivers, security guards, cleaners, agricultural and construction workers, and many other occupations do all day… Anybody in any doubt about what’s coming can find evidence on any number of websites, which I have been using in my classes for years, such as “Will robots take my job?”, that assess the threat level or probability any job or profession faces from robots or AI. As a post-secondary…
