Jeopardy is “a quiz on the television in which players are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers, and mush phrase their responses in the form of questions” (Wikipedia, 2016). 5 years ago IBM’s supercomputer Watson triumphed over the two best Jeopardy players in the world. How did IBM win this challenge? Watson had access to more than 4 terabyte of data, including all information on Wikipedia. More challenging was the fact that Watson had to reveal patterns and relationships across this big amount of data. In addition, Watson had to be able to understand questions that humans ask and provide answers that humans can understand as well (Techrepublic, 2013).
How is this relevant to the future of work? For the past decades, robots have been used to perform simple work jobs. However, the future holds more promise for the evolution of robots. In matter of fact, robots are climbing up the corporate ladder and performing jobs we would have never expected them to perform. Think about Watson, if Watson could reveal the patterns and relationships within the Wikipedia, he can also reveal all the patterns and relationships within the law books and case laws. What does this mean for jobs of lawyers?
By the time you read this blog, you probably have read a news article that was written by a reporter-robot as well (Wired, 2015). Large players in the fast-food industry have already developed an automated ‘hamburger flipper’, that can put fast-food workers out of their jobs (Techsider, 2016). And in most supermarkets robots have already (partly) replaced cashiers. A study, conducted by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne (2013), puts 47% of the existing jobs in the United States at ‘high risk’ due to the robotization. Robotization is the automation of a system or process by use of a robotic device (Wikitionary, 2016)
What holds the future for us? Most likely, there will be much less work. Amazon is already experimenting with a 30-hours work week (CNBC, 2016). In the future, we must learn to deal with more leisure time and less work. This probably will result in people earning less money. Do you like the current developments? I do not know whether I should be hopeful or frightened about the future. What do you think?
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy!
https://www.wired.com/2015/03/future-news-robots-writing-audiences-one/
http://www.techinsider.io/momentum-machines-is-hiring-2016-6
http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/robotization
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/16/why-amazon-and-other-companies-are-trying-30-hour-workweeks.html
Hi David,
This is always a very interesting question and the answer is coming closer and closer.
I do not think it is frightening at all, instead, I think that it will bring us lots of opportunities and new ways to shape our society. Having more leisure time and less work, sounds like a great future, right?
But what jobs will disappear first? Well, the answer lies in one single question, namely: “To what extent is that job reducible to frequent, high-volume tasks, and to what extent does it involve tackling novel situations?” (Goldbloom, 2016). For the first category, we will never be able to compete against machines and these kind of jobs will starting to disappear first (think of lawyers, accountants etc.). The second category, however, will be something our brains can only do and that are the kind of jobs that involve creativity and a lot of new situations.
While jobs will start to disappear, people will find new ways to spend their time and make money. I think for this reason that the leisure industry will become bigger and bigger and will open up new opportunities for people who have lost their jobs to machines.
Source; https://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_goldbloom_the_jobs_we_ll_lose_to_machines_and_the_ones_we_won_t
Thanks for bringing this topic. Not that long time ago a vision of robots taking control over our world was just a Sci-Fi movie idea, good to watch but unlikely to happen. However, the process of introducing robotic automation into human activities is already happening. So-called software robots are used to perform repetitive tasks instead of people (e.g. data entry into the system) at lower costs and with significantly greater efficiency. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has a great competition in a form of software robots. It threatens millions of people to lose their jobs and this phenomenon is already taking place, as many Western companies decide to take advantage of this innovation.
Since robotics is so widely used in this slightly simpler form, I think it is likely that in the near future jobs that require greater responsibility will also be replaced. Does it mean that humanity will face the problem (or maybe the blessing?) of excessive free time and leisure? For now, the answer is difficult to predict however one must think about possible consequences of such situation. As Stephen Hawking said: “Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution.”
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/24/robots-future-work-humans-jobs-leisure
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21690041-call-centres-have-created-millions-good-jobs-emerging-world-technology-threatens