Is It More Than Jobs Are Most Vulnerable?

Robots can effect employment in a negative way,as said by the author Kelly “It may be hard to believe… 70 percent of today’s occupation will likewise be replaced by automation...even you will have your job taken away by machines”(Kelly Page.300), this quote comes to show the negative aspect of robots taking over the world in the near

In today’s America, with robots on the rise, many people are feeling as if machines are threatening their jobs, and therefore their income, way of life, and basic stability. This is not an unreasonable fear. In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne with the University of Oxford predicted at as many as half the jobs in the United States could be automated within the next twenty years (Frey and Osborne). Even in the 1930s, economists such as John Maynard Keynes, the creator of Keynesian economics, predicted that technological developments could create economic climate that allows for a 15-hour work week with plenty of free time for the average American worker by the year 2030 (Thompson). The American workforce is shifting towards this prediction

In the essay “Better than Human” Kevin Kelly states his thesis hat robots will someday replace humans in the work place. Kelly starts by explaining how the Industrial Revolution has changed the way manual labor is performed as a result of automation; replacing humans with machines. Kelly says that the increasing demand for automation, artificial intelligence has given machines the ability to manage tasks from “manual labor to knowledge work.” (300) Kelly then says that robots will begin to replace blue and white collar jobs such as, assembly, heavy lifting, analytical, and medical applications. Kelly explains the innovative breakthrough named Baxter, a robot typically made for industrial applications

He explains how automation has taken human jobs before and how it has created new jobs for us. And the same thing will happen in the future. The author also gives examples of how robots are becoming more and more available to the average human. He addresses people's concerns about robots by exploring the opportunities robots will bring and that their will still be jobs for humans that robots have not yet taken over. Kelly concludes his essay by reinforcing the idea that robots will have their place and that humans will “dream up new work that matters”(Kelly).

In an age where technology is so advanced that robots replace humans in the workplace, it is no surprise that increasingly fewer Americans are considered full-time employees. While proponents of advancement argue that technology adds a high level job for every low level job it takes away, low class manufacturing jobs will not be the only newly-automated jobs. Due to rapid advancement, computers are projected to be one thousand times more powerful in the 2030s than computers today (McChesney and Nichols, 2016, 246). With these improvements, no human’s job is safe.

The term “Artificial Intelligence or AI” is no longer an obscure term to us. Being surrounded by smart and intelligent devices in our everyday life has made us aware about this technical jargon called “Artificial Intelligence or AI”, which is used to refer to machine intelligence in the field of Computer Science. As artificial intelligence continues to progress, machines are becoming smarter and more efficient than human beings. So, people are getting more concerned and apprehensive regarding their jobs after witnessing their jobs being replaced by robots and machines. Artificial Intelligence replacing human jobs frequently gets media attention and it has been made a huge deal even though it is not. AI gradually taking all our jobs and destroying the economic system is just an absurd and exaggerated claim made by few media outlets and self-proclaimed tech pundits. On the contrary, AI has potential to help us to get better at our jobs and create more job opportunities in the long run.

In “Better Than Human,” Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick of Wired Magazine, insists that automation will allow us to become more human. When society grants automation the permission to complete the most menial tasks, it will allow individuals trapped in dead-end careers such as fastening bolts onto cars, to search for their true passions which only humans can accomplish. More people will be able to pursue jobs that robots, for now, can not complete with ease. Kelly believes that as artificial intelligence and the creators of it advance, more jobs will be created to fulfill society's growing needs. The simple tasks of assembling new machinery can be completed by the already established automation; while the job of developing software that controls

In her introduction, Barbara Garson gives the reader an idea of her personal work experience as a clerk with automation. One can see that Garson is a strong critique of automation. In order to convey how automation is affecting our society the author begins by analyzing and studying various jobs from the bottom on up (i.e. starting with the most unskilled labor).

Searching for a job can be very stressful when someone is not the right candidate for the job they are applying for. Many Americans look for jobs each day and still no one will call them and say, “Hey Daphne you’re hired.’’ Being unemployed without a job can be a big stress when individuals have a family to feed and bills to pay. “With the unemployment rate falling to 5.3 percent, the lowest in seven years, policy makers are heaving a sigh of relief” (VentureBeat). Most of us are still jobless because nowadays they are replacing computers to do the work for them instead of hiring someone without a job. ‘’Robots have largely been seen as machines that perform routine, repetitive, cognitive actions. However, machines are already replicating human capabilities” (VentureBeat). For example, if anyone goes to Walmart and target they have self-check out

He looks at the relationship between the wage of the job, the education required and its probability of computerization. The author evaluated around 700 jobs and ranked them based on how likely they are to be computerized. What was found showed that the low risk occupations were ones that either required the person to be very educated, or required a vast amount of social interactions. And the high risk occupations were the ones that required little knowledge and low social interaction. Low risk jobs ranged from therapists, to healthcare workers, and high risk ones like library technicians, data entry keyers, production labor, transportation, and telemarketers. Frey believes that this takeover will happen in two stages. First, computers will start replacing people in the vulnerable fields, then the rate of replacement will slow down due to bottlenecks in the harder to automate fields. This “technological plateau”(38) will be followed by a second wave of computerization, but this will depend on how advanced artificial intelligence becomes. The second wave will put jobs in management, science, engineering, and the arts at risk. Overall the author concluded that 45 percent of American jobs are at high risk of being taken by computers within the next two

Heading into the maelstrom doesn’t sound like the best place to be, but it’s exactly where we are heading according to this text. Written by McChesney and Nichols, “Into the Maelstrom” is the first chapter of their complete text “People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and Citizenless Democracy”. This first chapter outlines a view of the current economic and political landscape, and how automation will affect it in the future. The focus is on the United States of America, but remains relevant to many countries in the global North. Automation involves the loss of jobs due to developments in technology, though joblessness is not a new thing. The text quotes Edward L. Glaeser, talking about how there has been an increase of joblessness over the past 40 years (14), though describes it as more of a symptom of a greater issue, than an individual problem.

The main key points of the side that support the advancement of job automation is that AI will improve the standard of living, lower the prices of products, and encourage people to get higher education. As job automation progresses, so does the standard of living. The largest sector of the job industry that will be affected by job automation is the service sector, manufacturing, and many other jobs that do not require higher education. Since robots will replace these lower paying jobs that do not require much skill, the quality of life will increase. One negative effect is that there are numerous people that hold these positions in the lower paying industry that will lose

While that dystopian future may seem rather extreme, a more modest proposal would follow that robots may not be eating babies, but they uncertainly threaten the value of our time within a workplace. Machines, to many companies, are a

In a recent study(pdf), economists Daren Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University try to quantify how worried we should be about robots. They examine the impact of industrial automation on the US labor market from 1990 to 2007. They conclude that each additional robot reduced employment in a given commuting area by 3-6 workers, and lowered overall wages by 0.25-0.5%. (Kopf)

Most experts agree that Artificial Intelligence is on the increase in various fields. It has become one of the most controversial scientific issues of the twenty-first century. It raises the unemployment rate, workers will not find enough jobs for them and some of them may lose their work. As a result of technology, according to Wilson, Daugherty and Bianzino (2017), "The threat that automation will eliminate a broad swath of jobs across the world economy is now well established. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems become ever more