Can you remember your first job? For lots of people, their entry into the job market was at a cafe or a restaurant, waiting tables or serving coffee. But in the future, such jobs might not even be available. That’s because the introduction of cloud computing has enabled robots to do the work of humans. For instance, advances in cloud robotics – robots’ ability to upload experiences to the cloud and learn from the experiences of all other robots – mean that robots can now learn and grow faster than ever before.
As a result, robots are going to be capable of completing new tasks. In fact, an Oxford University study found that 47% of all US jobs are at great risk of being done by robots in the next two decades. For instance, the car service Uber runs a research lab that is building an automated taxi-fleet and Google’s research lab, Google X has been working on a driverless car project for six years!
We decide what the consequences of technology will be. Physicist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Elon Musk, for instance, have both argued that the rapid development of technology in areas such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and synthetic biology will forever alter humanity’s path. There will simply be no turning back. We have to decide how much of this technology we want in our lives. For instance, while having a driverless car sounds very enticing and fascinating, would you want to entrust the lives of your family to a car driven by a system that could easily be hacked?
But why would we want to replace human workers with robots?
Well, robots can service more people at lower prices. That’s because, unlike humans, who are cheap to hire but costly to keep on staff, robots don’t get paid a salary or take vacations. In fact, they can work all the time. Just consider SEDASYS, a robotics system that oversees the sedation of surgery patients. Without SEDASYS, an anesthesiologist can only monitor one operation at a time, and his presence adds $2,000 to the cost of the operation. With SEDASYS, however, a single anesthesiologist can simultaneously oversee ten operations, and his efforts only add $150 per operation. However, the value produced by robots isn’t going to be equally distributed.
Beside the security, we need to face that most of the savings made possible by robots will go straight to the big corporations that produce them. That means it’s up to governments to redistribute part of those savings into things like social-safety nets, education and skills training for the labor force displaced by robots.
Therefore, governments need to do something about the income people will lose.
I believe we need to start change NOW! Start with education, coding is the most important skills young children should learn! This should be mandatory and included in the curriculum, worldwide! Is the government ready? What changes do we need to put in place?
Major changes are coming our way… But are we preparred and ready for it? I dont think so!
I would love to hear what you think. Share your thoughts…. and if you want to read more about this topic on how technology will affect stroytellers, click this link. Must read:) Virgin-Storytellers
Much love, Marietta
