Rise of the Robots and Preparing for it!
Have you seen the movie iRobot?
If not then you must watch it to find out how the movie creates a fictional world where robots walk amongst the crowds and work hand-in-hand with the humans. Still fictional, but that time might not be far away when we would be employing robots instead of people to do our daily chores.
Even now we see robots already being used for cleaning in houses and airports. With Robotics and Artificial Intelligence spreading across all the areas of life, living with robots will no longer be a science fiction.
According to a McKinsey report from 2017, robots will take over 800 million jobs by 2030, thus affecting one-fifth of the global workforce. Several industries like e-commerce, food, hotel, fashion, retail and automotive have already started replacing their workforce with robots. Amazon, DHL, Tesla, CaliBurger, Shisheido, Adidas, Walmart, Carrier, Nestle, Pizza Hut, Just Eat, Marriot Hotels, Crowne Plaza Hotels, Nissan, Zara are few of the companies which have replaced human employees with robots.
With the advances in AI and automation, many people like manufacturing workers, waiters, cleaning staff, and customer service staff will face the fear of an uncertain future. Robots work efficiently and economically as compared to us and thus pose a threat to the workers in the maintenance occupations.
Automation is said to replace 73 million U.S. jobs by 2030. Another study says that robots can cut 200,000 U.S bank jobs in the next decade. And this scenario would be seen all over the world with firstly emerging in developed countries. But, at the same time, more jobs will arise in the field of STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) with the majority of them being in Computer Science as the power of human minds would be needed to design, manufacture and program these robots.
So brace yourselves for the coming future and become a part of the solution, not the problem. And more than us our future generations would be the ones living and working in the digital era and must be prepared for it.
Even now computing jobs are the topmost source of new wages. Every child in the 21st century must be exposed to the field of computer science. They must know algorithms, they must know how computers work, how to build an app, and how to use the technology for their good. For even if they don’t become programmers, they will acquire much-needed skills of the 21st century. Coding is the literacy of the 21st century and kids must be taught coding as an essential skill.
Today schools and teachers are recognizing the growing importance of coding and computational thinking. Japan has made computer programming a mandatory subject for primary schools. Singapore government is also introducing mandatory coding enrichment programs for upper primary students.
In this rising technological society, it has become absolutely necessary to equip our kids with computational thinking and creativity so that they are ready for the changing world. And as parents, we should be the ones providing our kids with the opportunity to explore the world of programming.
