Will you be replaced by a robot… Navigating job security amid an AI takeover
By: Ayden Saeki
For many college students, the thought of figuring out your major and finding your passion is stressful enough. With technology advancing so rapidly, there is another issue to worry about: will you be replaced by a robot?
As we witness the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), we are also seeing anxieties and worries spike, thinking about the multitude of problems that potentially come with it.
One of the main worries of college grads and working professionals alike is their jobs and job security in the long run. People are becoming increasingly more stressed and anxious about their jobs potentially being taken by AI.
While there are many unknowns and unanswered questions regarding AI, its scarily fast developments can’t help but cause worry. With students getting ready to enter the workforce, AI is now becoming another concern to add to their already overflowing plate.
“I am really scared of AI and its potential,” said third-year PCC student Brendan Miller, “It’s already hard enough to try and figure out what you’re going to do in life, and then on top of that, you have to worry about if your job could be taken away from you by AI.”
But as AI is still in its infancy and some of these fears become a reality, how many of these concerns are valid?
Some of the first jobs on this imaginary chopping block are ones that are more automated, such as data entry, customer service positions, and even fast food workers.
Companies even began to implement this as far back as December of 2023, such as Wendy’s new program, “Wendy’s Fresh AI,” which allows the drive-thru order experience to go through an AI bot. This program has just begun, as it was implemented in four restaurants in Columbus, Ohio, but with technology rapidly advancing, they are planning to scale to more restaurants, ultimately taking more jobs.
Along with fast food jobs being taken, AI has begun to move further into the workplace, even having the potential to take some corporate jobs. In a study done by Goldman Sachs, they found that “using data on occupational tasks in both the US and Europe, we find that roughly two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work.”
While it seems right now that AI’s capabilities focus on things like repetitive and more monotonous tasks like data entry or assembly line work, it seems to be touching even more advanced job fields in some way. Although AI hasn’t fully taken over some of these more advanced jobs, companies are relying heavily on it to help them with some of the smaller tasks.
UCLA Health has implemented a program that is classified as robotic surgery. In this surgery, UCLA states “We use robotic surgery to do complex and life-saving surgeries. The 3D camera and magnification allows the surgeon to visualize the anatomy of the operation better. Your surgeon fully controls the robotic tools, which allows for greater precision and access to hard-to-reach places.”
A viral video recently highlighted a panel done with Ameca, a robot woman created by Engineering Arts, that showed her answering questions from the public. This video seems all too familiar to “I, Robot” and is very concerning for some seeing the potential negatives of this robot woman.
The video then took a turn when a journalist interviewed her and asked, “Ameca, when do you believe AI will reach the level where it can design itself?”
Ameca seemingly thinks this is funny, responding, “Design itself? Huh? That’s like asking when a toaster will start making its own bread.”
This interaction was especially unnerving considering how life-like these robots are starting to become and even having their own sense of humor. Thinking about how advanced these robots already are and how much more they can be improved for the future, this can be concerning in terms of taking over the workforce.
While many are worried about robots like Ameca and others becoming too life-like, an article by the UN assures the public that “Ameca, developed by Engineered Arts, represents an ideal platform to explore how machines can live with, collaborate, and enrich humanity in tomorrow’s sustainable communities, according to ITU.”
Many have these fears of AI stem from the fear of its future capabilities but it is important also to acknowledge that AI is also bringing some positives and job opportunities to the table.
AI, at its core, is a man-made idea. This means that for the foreseeable future, people are still greatly needed to help this system. While some jobs will likely become more automated, AI is opening doors for other opportunities, especially for those interested in STEM and code-related jobs.
Jobs like “deep learning engineers, AI chatbot developers, prompt engineers, data annotators, stable diffusion and dall-E artists, OpenAI codex specialists and much more” are becoming more and more popular and abundant according to an article by Rachel Curry from CNBC.
While many fear AI, there is also a large group of people who have figured out how to use it to benefit their own lives, even making their workload easier.
Layla, an AI travel planner is making waves for streamlining the travel process and making it easier than ever before to pack up and take a vacation.
Prompting her with “Plan me a Hawaii trip,” Layla takes over asking how many days you are planning to travel and then curates a personalized itinerary, which plans out your entire day from ‘morning’ options all the way to ‘bedtime.’ You then have the option to adjust based on budget, activities you’d like to do, and more.
Some people who have jobs that seemingly can be replaced by AI are not worried. “I don’t see news robots as a threat to journalism. Right now, they give journalists time to develop better journalism. It allows us to spend more time doing what we’re best at and less time doing basic reporting,” says Markus Isacson, sports reporter at VK in Umeå in an article.
While we all try to figure out a delicate balance between robotic and real in our lives, it is unclear where the future will take us.
