Issue Of Competitiveness: Robotics Versus Human Workers

In recent years, we have seen jobs that were done by people being completed by machines and robots. A lot of people are asking “when will it stop, will robots and machines replace humans in the workplace and what jobs will be left?”. Looking into the future there is a very high chance that people’s jobs will be made redundant due to the extent of robots in the workplace. This essay will argue that artificial intelligence and robots are potential threats to employment and that technologies will make the need for people in the workplace redundant. Robots are already being used in healthcare, education, and business. This is already being felt throughout the economy, and experts are disagreeing on the size of the impact that robots will have in the workplace.

As technology continues to increase and become more popular, easier to use and more convenient, robots are being made to become more intelligent and computers are being taught to perform tasks more effectively than humans. It’s quite daunting to think robots could be overpowering the workplace and therefore leaving little to no jobs for humans in the near future (Broadbent, 2016).

Human to robot interaction is an interesting field and one in which psychologists have much to contribute, both to the development of robots and to the study of human behaviour (Broadbent, 2016). Seeing that the use of robots has increased, there are many concerns about things such as, loss of jobs, safety, confidentiality and the loss of relationships between humans. People who invent robots, such as engineers, are inventing them so that they look, behave and act like humans but also have human knowledge and human emotions. Robots are being seen to offer advantages such as, relieving people from becoming lonely and enabling communication (Hughes, 2016).

Robotics are becoming cost-competitive with human workers, hence why there is so many being invented. The way that robots are being invented, means robots can generally function for 24 hours (or longer) without needing a break or being interrupted (West, 2015). Professionals are coming together and are immensely disagreeing on how big of an effect robotic technology will eventually have on the employees. A bunch of experts argue that computers will have little to no effect on employment in the future (Karsten & West, 2015) and state the increase of robotics may lead to new jobs that will employ displaced workers. While other professionals are waning employees of future unemployment. Professionals in both industries (engineers and companies wanting to use robotics) need to start thinking about a way to deliver other ways of employment or look for benefits outside of employment (Karsten & West, 2015), as artificial intelligence is looking to make it hard for humans to secure stable jobs in the future. For example, and idea would be flexible security. This could be used for providing healthcare and education regardless whether or not a person is employed.

When robots are being invented, they are programmed to perform many jobs, but mainly those that are dangerous, dull or dirty. For example, robotics in car factories are programmed to perform the same jobs over and over. These jobs are performed with great precision and without complaint. There are many more examples of robots performing unpleasing jobs. (Lin, 2011). Other than the jobs previously stated, robots are performing difficult and delicate surgeries in hospitals. Today, robots are also exploring volcanoes and clean up contaminated sites. People are now thinking of robots becoming human replacements in the future (Lin, 2011). Again, professionals are arguing the fact that robots could eventually replace humans in circumstances where things could become emotional. Given such skills, people are finding robotics already in today’s society, or an under development, in a wide range of roles.

The more robots and technologies being made, means more types of tasks may be replaced by machines or software than everyone has previously thought. Robotics are already taking over tasks in the workplace including education and the health industry. The types of tasks and occupations that are more than likely to be computerised in the coming years are things like shopkeepers or sales assistants, in the way that most shopping places (retail and groceries) are replacing their human employees with self-serve checkouts. An example is fast food chains where it is seen that front counter workers are being replaced with self-serve technology. This is already happening and has been for a while, at McDonalds. With access to big data on consumer behavior, as well as local conditions, they can upsell more effectively than a human mumbling ‘Would you like fries with that?’ (Muhlbaum, 2018). Similarly, mobile-ordering apps are threatening the jobs of people on the other end of the drive-through. But according to research, robots will eventually move into the kitchen as well, as fast-food chains respond to rising minimum wages by investing in robotics to do preparation work, cooking and cleaning.

Using this prediction, experts map these job characteristics to occupations to predict the extent to which different jobs are more than likely to be automated (Frey and Osborne, 2013). It has been predicted that in the United States, that 47 per cent of employment has a high risk of being automated over the next decade or two (Frey and Osborne, 2013). Over the next 10-15 years, it is being said that nearly 40 per cent of Australian jobs are at risk of becoming redundant to make room for robotics and automation (Durrant-Whyte et al. 2015).

The jobs that include many types of tasks are most vulnerable to robotics, which means that once the technology is in place and automated, the production process happens basically straight away, on its own (Walla, S.A. 2018). The tasks handed can be made for a robot to copy by using step by step instructions once put into computer code. Some of these tasks are mathematical calculations, information retrieval, and data sorting. It is more difficult to automate tasks that require flexibility, judgment, intuition, creativity, and common sense (Walla, S.A, 2018).

Automation does not mean that jobs with routine or repetitive tasks will simply disappear (Walla S.A, 2018). When ATMs were introduced during the early 1970s, many people worried that they would replace banks and that employment would decrease. Because ATMs reduced the cost of operation, interestingly enough, the number of bank branches increased. While the number of human workers per branch decreased, because there were more branches, there were more employment opportunities for cashiers. There were more cashiers employed in 2010 than in 1980, and their tasks have since expanded to include ‘relationship banking’, something ATMs cannot do (Bessen, J, 2015). A similar thing has happened in auto manufacturing: While much manual human labour has been replaced by automation, cars have become more multifaceted, requiring more labour. As a result, it takes more human labour to produce a car now than in the past (Guo J, 2017).

Today there is now over 1.2 million industrial machines and robots working all over the world and will grow immensely as technology advances. However, there are many occupations in the workplace in which humans will not be able to be replaced, things such as artistic jobs that use creativity and imagination, something that computers are not able to do. Whilst there are now artificial intelligence and robots that are performing surgeries and showing up more in the education department, not all tasks in both occupations can be undertaken by robots. They may have steadier hands but aren’t capable of connecting on a human level with patients and families. Robots are unable to show compassion like people do and should never be able to replace us when it comes to human interaction. Although, robots becoming the main source of “employees” in the future is very likely and a high chance of being the reason people’s jobs become made redundant, it will be a long time before that happens.