Robots Aren't Coming For Jobs: AI Is Already Taking Them
Robots Aren't Coming For Jobs:
AI Is Already Taking Them
By Oct 25, 2018, 03:54pm
There's a lot of talk
whether robots, automation, and artificial intelligence will take over an
increasing number of jobs and supplant people. Supporters say that businesses
can run more efficiently and free up employees to do more meaningful work.
Skeptics say the jobs will go and so will the people.
The thing is, the change is already happening and anyone
who tells you that all companies will shift workers to something with a higher
value either has either taken one too many hits off a jug of artificially
flavored fruit punch or hasn't a clue as to how things actually work in most
companies.
First, the inroads are happening every day and frequently
with jobs that pay less and attract people with fewer marketable skills. One
example my son in Washington, D.C. saw one night was a squat robot, moving
along the sidewalk at night using GPS for navigation. It carried someone's
dinner inside.
When the devices began to appear last year, coverage was largely positive, as
you can see from this NPR piece.
It did address the question of replacing people:
The company sees robots as a supplemental form of
delivery, not a replacement, he says. Robots like these ideally will complete
deliveries that normally wouldn't have been placed with the human-based
delivery options of the past.
"We have people that drive cars, they walk, they
bike, and we see robots as another type of vehicle that enables a whole bunch
of different things from a delivery perspective," Cook says.
Legislation has passed to make self-driving robots like
these legal on the sidewalks in the District of Columbia and Virginia, and
similar laws are in the works in Florida and Idaho. Other states also have
expressed interest.
It might be an additional
choice — for now. Have enough of the robots on the move and you don't need so
many people walking, at least for local deliveries. That's the problem. Maybe
not all the jobs disappear, but there are fewer and the savings from less
spending on workers goes into the pockets of a company and its owners.
The same is true throughout the food service industry,
one of the largest lower-wage employment sectors. In early October, the Wall
Street Journal ran a piece on "robot
restaurants. One had machines that made better-quality burgers,
including grinding beef in-house, and could deliver them at two per minute.
There was a bar that used robots to mix and serve drinks, including delivering
clever lines to customers. Robot-made pizzas that baked in delivery trucks that
had built-in ovens.
According to market analyst firm Gartner, 75% of finance
departments will employ automation by 2020 to handle manual
tasks and free people up for other work.
Years ago, I spoke with an executive from a company that
was automated some types of work. I asked, as even then this was the standard
answer you'd hear, whether personnel would be shifted for higher-value work. A
moment of candor I've found remarkable in business followed. The executive
said, "You know, that's what we say, but really it's about eliminating the
jobs."
Of course, it is. If people were needed in other
positions, they already would have been hired. Businesses typically look for
people who possess skills and don't commonly consider training the displaced to
do something else. It does happen on occasion. I spoke with a major firm some
time back about how automation was making many in their accounting department
unnecessary. The company was training people to become software developers. The
probable reason: higher-demand skills like programming are difficult to find. I
also suspect the total cost of training and eventual salary would be lower than
trying to hire people with experience who could command higher salaries.
But, by and large, companies will eliminate positions
because that's what they're supposed to do. Keep people on for unnecessary
jobs? Why would an executive do that?
Anything predictable enough is fair game at this point.
BlackRock, the world's largest investment fund, plans to have computers
pick stocks for actively managed funds. And three dozen workers, who
likely once made an excellent living, are no longer with the company.
The problem for society is that modern capitalism has
lost its way. Shareholder interests have been touted as the most important, a
development largely, although not entirely, that sits at the feet of the late
Milton Friedman.
If you've ever studied calculus, you learned the
impossibility of maximizing an equation for more than one variable. If
management sees its job, and financial self-interest, in driving up stock
prices, everything else will ultimately have to play second fiddle.
But businesses and the economy aren't simplistic
equations whose solutions are listed in the back of the book. They represent
complex systems for which mathematical models are horrendously complex. Push
the system's parameters to favor one aspect you lose stability. Eventually the
system will right itself, but in a way that may not be recognizable, or
desirable.
Major revolutions, like historical ones in France and
Russia, were largely the result of too long a period during which the benefits
of a total society were funneled to a relative few. Or look at the Gilded Age
in the U.S. There wasn't a revolution per se, but the country saw massive
unrest and violence that helped lead to modern labor unions. You can only
expect people to wait so long.
And then, modern times we have an interconnected world.
Russia, France, or any other major country cannot contain vast turmoil within
its borders without the effects spilling out. Disruption in one area can spread
everywhere.
Maybe people will begin to take a different approach and
consider sustainable actions. But given the predictions for global warming,
which should scare the soul out of anyone, don't seem to be driving enough
change, why expect companies to be smarter about this topic?
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