On Facebook I came across this (English language) video about robot suits. Coincidentally I had a discussion about exactly this topic last week, so I have been thinking about the impact of robots and robotic equipment quite a lot over the past days.
My personal belief is that robots will make our life a lot easier, but that they will also lead to mass unemployment. I am generally an optimist and I like technological progress more than most, but I do believe that within one generation most people’s jobs might be replaced by robots. And not just almost all low-end jobs, but also many higher-end positions like those of doctors, cooks and teachers.
Scary? Yes, especially because I don’t see how other jobs can be created to offset the loss of jobs within this short timespan. If 50% of the adult population is unemployed this will cause mass unrest, even if we can find a way to provide these people with a basic income. Most people only look a few years ahead and think this will sort itself out, but I am not too sure about that.
Robots get exponentially faster, smarter and cheaper, and things that now seem impossible will be possible very soon. One good example are autonomous cars. Just a year ago most people that I talked to did not believe my vision that they would see them in their lifetimes. My prediction was that Scott (who is now 6 years old now) would not need to get a drivers license anymore because he would be able to get a self-driving car.
People laughed at that idea, but see how far we have come in just one year: Tesla is now launching a car with an autopilot and that’s the last step to a real self-driving vehicle. My prediction: within 5 years the first cars without drivers will hit the car showrooms in California. The main hurdle won’t be technology but outdated government legislation.
Robots will not necessarily be independently functioning objects like cars or humanoids, but can also be something like the suit in the video. They can make humans into super humans and that will lead to interesting new possibilities. This will also cause the loss of jobs, but to me it feels less scary than the ‘normal’ robots. Take a look at the video and think about the possibilities. Maybe one day I will be able to run the marathon in less than 2 hours because of a robot suit!
My first response to the robot revolution was similar to yours, but will it really be this way?
Human wants really are unlimited. If I compare countries like Thailand or Malaysia then I see a lot of services that people in the West would gladly have around them: f.e., massages, food courts, etc. Almost every culture seems to have a few of these non-tech services that people in the West would like to have and could do. That’s just the low-hanging fruit. I just don’t think people who lose their job will all end up doing nothing. Jobs, like being a doctor, will change, but I don’t think doctors will disappear; they’ll work in tandem with robots/computers. All for the better.
I also think entrepreneurship, freelancing, art/cultural expression & science as a career will see a renaissance, because these are the work options left open for the economy we’re becoming. In general, I think jobs that lead to increasing the pie will remain and/or increase, while jobs related to redistributing pieces of the pie will slowly decrease and/or disappear.
The robot suit makes me emotional, an amazing step forward. I’ve seen my father die slowly from MS and to think others will not have to endure a similar faith makes me intensely happy.
@Jimmy, I agree with you on art/culture/science seeing a renaissance when people have a lot more time.
But I am afraid that this time around job losses won’t be compensated by new jobs, simply because robots can do almost any job better, faster and cheaper. And they keep getting better at it.
That’s the difference with the industrial revolution or more recently computer automation, these technologies only replaced a subset of jobs that could be replaced with new jobs outside that space. With robots that’s not possible (for good or for bad) because they can also do the new jobs better than humans, so we need to find different ways to keep these laid off people happy (and fed).
I’m not familiar enough with current robotics to judge how revolutionary they’ll be. I sure hope they will be.
Still, there is work that people prefer people to do. F.e. loneliness is a huge problem in aging societies, entertainment & keeping someone company might sound nutty, but I have no doubt there’s work in this sphere in the future.
There’s also the connection between business & IT, my master. I don’t know if you read it, but the Dutch gov spends 5 billion euro per year on failed IT projects . That’s not all stupidity or laziness. It really is hard to get IT to ‘fit’/be tailormade.
I think there’s a huge market for people to do more ETL work. Huge swaths of data are wasted which could lead to better analysis & information.
Anyway, no pollyanna here, I just read work by Brynjolfsson, Cowen, Thiel, etc. and while they did leave me convinced automation is different this time, I still thought of possibilities for what people can do. There’s always a way out of anything! 🙂