I don’t think anyone would argue that we, as a species, are on the cusp of a truly trans-formative age. For thousands of years, humans have crafted tools and created processes to make everything we do – from gathering food to paying taxes – easier and more efficient.
Technology’s advancements have now placed in jeopardy the job security of many individuals. Their fear is that they will soon become obsolete – that a cheaply-produced and easily-programmed robot will supplant them from their position, offering management structures a mechanical employee that will cost pennies on the dollar; that will never request vacation time; and that will never call in sick.
Admittedly, it is difficult to assuage those fears – but in order to do so, one must only look to the past and recall that in times of great change, the workforce has adapted to fill opportunities that were once completely inconceivable.
The Migration of Manufacturing
In an effort to reduce manufacturing costs, many companies set up shops overseas. The reason, of course, is that wages paid in developing countries are a fraction of what they are back home; however, with the proliferation of robot workers filling more than just the economy’s most dangerous and unpleasant tasks, robots have become so cost effective that manufacturing is coming back to familiar shores.
How New Robots are Bringing Down Costs
When you think about robots in the workplace, you might invariably think about monolithic, single-task robotic arms, similar to the ones used for building automobiles or other large, complex machinery. While these robots revolutionized the manufacturing sector, they are built for a very specific purpose. They perform their task(s) sufficiently, but ultimately, their range is limited.
New robots like Baxter are trained, not programmed. This means that they are able to adapt to new tasks, and can be shown the process for completing a job on-site rather than requiring specific programming. This ability to be trained means that the large financial cost associated with complex programming is virtually eliminated – and the number of tasks one robot can complete becomes incalculable. Even if a robot works at a fraction of the speed a human worker does, a robot’s cost per hour is so low compared to that of a human that it still makes more sense to employ a robot.
Robots are becoming simpler in their advancement, too. At one time, many plants needed highly trained robotic and electromechanical technicians on-site to maintain the robot workforce; now it seems, robots are quite capable of maintaining themselves.
What Does this Mean for Human Labour?
Are we destined to face record high unemployment rates at the behest of the robot boom? Many believe this to be a likely scenario – but some also believe that swapping out the lion’s share of the simian workforce for the robotic variety means that we will all be free to pursue higher endeavors – to concentrate our efforts within specialized fields.
History shows us that the latter position does have some merit. Think about it. Many of the advancements that humanity has accomplished in the last few hundred years have eliminated the need for human involvement in many different industries. For example, a hundred years ago, the workforce numbers needed to harvest crops were exponentially greater than those required now. Many farms are now automated and require very few hands to run efficiently.
The workers displaced by the advancements in agricultural technology and processes eventually found other work – and because of those advancements, droves of workers in subsequent generations were able to pursue other opportunities.
Simply put, the workforce will adapt as it always has. That is, after all, how the economy grows, and that is how we as a species will continue to evolve.
Photo Credits
Photo one from Wikipedia Commons – Public Domain
Photo two by Steve Jurvetson, Wikipedia Commons – Public Domain
Guest Author Bio
John Berwick
John Berwick may be a Technical Writer by trade, but he enjoys blogging and voicing his opinion on a wide variety of topics more than anything else in the world. He has written for many different sectors including health care, software development, security, marketing, and e-commerce industries.
Visit John’s Site: John Berwick Freelance
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