Will We Loose Our Jobs to Robots?
An article from the New York
Times called “Will You Lose Your Job
to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split” by Claire Miller brought up an interesting
question about the groundbreaking advances in technology. It is really
interesting to see how cars are driving by themselves and how robots can make
full surgery with 10X more precision then a human hand can. However, some
thinkers find that quite horrifying due to the very nature of the concept. Robots
are getting better then humans. If robots can do everything that a human can do
(sometimes, even better), then will they not take away our jobs? A partner from
Open Tech Strategies is preparing for the worse. He stated, “We’re going to have to come
to grips with a long-term employment crisis”.
Indeed, with the advances in the A.I.
business, humans will have less and less work to do. However, when we look at
our societies’ history with big economic changes, we adapt. For example, in the
agricultural Revolution, many people lost their jobs to machines in farms and
plantations. This created a massive rural exodus and most people that lived in
the farm went to the city environment, which, at the same time, needed people
for man-work. The people who lost their job just adapted to this new type of
work at industries and factories. Even though many people started to live in
the streets and at slums for some period of time, most of them eventually
bought houses and continued their lives just as it was. Also, children started
to be taught how to do math or right an essay instead of learning how to plant
corn or milk a cow. All because this was the new type of jobs most of them were
going to pursue.
If the robots get as good as humans
in every possible job there is, then humans don’t longer need to work. In the
movie Zeitgeist II, the director Peter Joseph explains how society could start
focusing on other things, like the universe and trying to search for other
habitable planets. While robots are maintaining society stable, we could create
this new society, which is similar to Karl Marx’s utopian society, and have
everybody work together to evolve, not as an individual, but as a civilization.
Truly, no one would ever need to do a thing, but if they wanted to help the
group, each person would be able to help in a different way, as we all do
today.
In the other hand, we could have total catastrophe if we
do not change the way our society is organized. For example, if capitalist is
kept alive, then we could have the majority of the population unemployed,
starving, homeless and with no future. There would only have a truly small
number of people who would control these robot-based companies and be filthy
rich. But again, how would anyone make any money to buy those companies
products if they do not work?
We cannot know what will happen in
the future, but there is a great chance that human life might change completely
in the coming years. Scientists will continue to advance in the A.I field till
the robots surpass human capability. If that happen, we might even mix human
with robots to create a whole new specie, whose evolution depends on itself. We
could have other types of jobs, continue doing them but a lot better, stop
working, create new jobs; we have an infinite number of options. The real
question is, are we going to adapt or die in our past?
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