“The world has changed so much.” Talk to any old man and this is the first line he’ll start the conversation with.
Though the man would have been living consciously in the times of change, even he finds difficult coming to grasp with the changes that have come about year after year.
The world has been changing faster than ever. The rate is unprecedented. So let's say you get a time machine!
You go you go back 250 years to 1750’s- A time when coal workers worked day in and out to power the houses of elites and factories, when you needed hay and not petrol to go from one place to another, and when by the time a soldier stationed beyond the blue ocean received a message from home that a he's fathered a baby girl, she already knows how to say “Mamma!”.
So you take a man from such an era and introduce him to today's world. You walk him around on busy streets, show him huge skyscrapers, and shiny capsules running on the streets with people in it.
It is very likely that he’ll drop unconscious! The shock would be baffling! Never would he have thought that you no longer need shovels- to dig, travel- to convey a message, find a painter- to get a portrait done or even walk- to go from one place to the other.
But if the same person goes back 250 years to 1500’s, and grabs a guy to bring to the 1750, the guy might not be ‘so’ shocked. Yes, there would be differences in how events have unfolded. But the day to day life would not be so different.
Now try to understand this thing. The difference of years in both the cases is just the same- 250 years! But in the difference in changes are huge! The changes are much more surprising from 1750 to 2000 than those from 1500 to 1750.
Yes, the world is changing. But the change is getting faster than ever! So what happened in the last two and a half centuries or so that changed the world so much? In one word,- Automation
A Pandora’s Paradox
With advances in physics and Maths, World quickly developed tools and machines that not only reduced the time to do things but also impacted the number of people required to handle stuff.
On one hand it is makes the capitalists happy and optimistic since it enables us achieve levels of productivity never seen before. On the other hand, the employees live in a glooming uncertainty whether their job will be there in the coming year or not!
This dual nature of Automation and advancement has the futurists in splits. Some say automation and AI is good and won't affect us in a negative way while others believe it's the other way round.
So what it is? The best way to decide to hear out both the arguments.
The Optimistic View:
The optimistic view states that with the increase in automation, there is an insignificant effect on employment.
The reason they believe so is that while automation does make one or the other skill redundant, any Job requires a multiplicity of skills.
Brain and Brawn, technical expertise, intuitive mastery, subjective interaction are some of the facets.
While automation is expanding in range ability, any new automation generally affects any single facet of these things.
The result? Jobs get SHIFTED. NOT eliminated.
Take the case Of E commerce giant Amazon.
The company has over the last three years increased the number of robots working in its warehouses from 1,400 to 45,000. Over the same period, its rate of hires workers hasn’t dwindled.
The explanation is, when Amazon installs warehouse robots, they currently don’t replace full workers, but rather, the part of the job that involves fetching products from different shelves.
Another view says that even if it kills jobs, it creates others.
One interesting example here is the impact of ATM’s in the past 40 years on the Banking sector jobs. While it was expected that ATM’s would make many jobs obsolete. But in reality the jobs have doubled. From a quarter million in 1970 to about half a million today!
The reason behind this is, even if teller jobs became less and less required, the serviceability aspect of banks were on the rise!
And this is what is happening to the society ever since the end of industrial revolution.
Before and around the industrial revolution, most jobs were concentrated around agriculture. Post industrial revolution, there has been a significant decline in the agricultural sector. But it has also been compensated by a good growth in jobs of other sectors.
The Optimistic viewpoint believes that human genius and human insatiability are two forces that will never allow jobs to get eliminated completely. According to it, our creativity, and ingenuity will always find meaningful expression that sustain a living.
“Any time in history we’ve seen automation occur, people don’t all of the sudden stop being creative and wanting to do interesting new things,” says Aaron Levie, the CEO of enterprise software company Box and an automation optimist.
“We just don’t do a lot of the redundant, obsolete work.”
The pessimistic view
The pessimistic view of automation presents a dystopia where robots will take the jobs of humans.
This view has been a growing concern especially amongst those who feel that the more automated and intelligent things become, the more we become expendable. “They will take our place.” is the fear.
And this is true. Robots and artificial intelligence are not only taking up jobs but are now getting citizenry!
A robot with an uncannily human-like appearance recently advanced one step closer to human status, when it was granted citizenship to Saudi Arabia at the tech summit Future Investment Initiative (FII).
Some believe there will be a significant evolutionary impact on humans. An impact that will change the way we are today.
Anthropologists and psychologists believe this increased automation and Artificial Intelligence will make our memory less capable, will make handwork (like writing, painting, sculpting) obsolete and also impact our religious beliefs.
It's impact on jobs is also seen with high skepticism. Data shows that there is a significant inequality in terms of growth in the manufacturing sectors and the jobs it entails.
Automation Pessimists also question the rate at which the jobs are replenished and also the quality of jobs that are generated.
They argue that once people loose job due to automation that replaces one of their skill sets, they are left with fewer skills that has direct bearing on what they earn with the new job.
The pay generally decreases. Also the number of people one robot replaces is much higher than the rate at which those replaced get jobs.
One such example is the oil industry in US. There has been a continuous automation of the oil rigs which has reduced the requirement of labor to just 1/4th of the initial number.
What was earlier a 20 people job is now just a 5 people one. The concern here is, the pace at which automation is increasing is faster than the rate at which people are getting new jobs.
However this may not be the case in every scenario. The way these numbers act is also dependent on the sector, the industry and the demographics and macroeconomics of the country.
So these were the two viewpoints concerning automation, jobs and how it will impact us. Now it's up to you to determine which thought seems more acceptable!