Automation Won’t Take Occupations It’ll Make Them Better
In 2018, speculation driven by fear has made employees from low wage labor, to even financial managers and lawyers afraid of what the future will hold. Many are wonder if they are safe from automation or if this is the inevitable future dystopia that began the end of our own demise.
The Reality
In reality, 45% of work activities could be automated today using technology that was already engineered. More so, 30% of activities in 60% could be automated. However, fewer than 5% of occupations could be fully implemented with automation. (Chui, 2015)
This will make people’s jobs less tedious because there will be no paper work to do; it will also evolve to be more customer service oriented giving people adaptations to make it more personalized. This can already be seen in a number of places. At Ulta Beauty they have unveiled apps that show shades of make-up on your face much like a SnapChat filter. This allows employees to better salespersons. Another positive is that it allows employees to be more efficient making sales quicker, and involves less human processing.
Part of the 5% that can be replaced are in warehousing such as processing shipments, automation can decrease human error and injuries. Other jobs such as trucking, drivers who own their trucks can automate them and focus on growing their fleet.
If you see the future in the positive light the possibilities for growing a small business will be endless.
In fields such as medicine, they can process patients quicker and focus on the most urgent injuries such as in an emergency room. Some high level automation crossovers with artificial intelligence such as IBM’s Watson can look for cancer and find medical evidence quicker than doctors can. This is a positive benefit to patients needing urgent life-saving cancer treatments allowing doctors to see more patients.
The end of the world is near or is it?
People evoke automation as the end of the world. In reality it won’t be, it’ll just allow people to do their job more efficiently than before. This will further increase global incomes as they have been for the past centuries. A minority of jobs will be displaced but community colleges across the country offer many affordable degrees to retrain displaced workers. At some point maybe everyone will own their own Watson to do their work for them. It could be a real possibility as technologies mature and because easily producible.
What people do better than robots?
You say that 5% of displaced workers is still a large portion of the workforce.
I agree.
Here’s a solution: Creativity.
For the jobs that are cut out do to automation efficiencies, there are area’s that robots cannot replace, that need a special human touch. These jobs invoke creativity and cannot be replicated easily. As automation goes further, people will yearn for creativity and human connections. People will seek out people for opinions, service, and other related areas because people trust people and not robots.
Chui, M., Manyika, J., & Miremadi, M. (2015, November). Four fundamentals of workplace automation. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation
