Robots Want Our Jobs
Market analyst Brian Hopkins of Forrester Research predicts that automated systems will eliminate 6% of all jobs in the United States by 2021. Six percent of all jobs is pretty significant. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 144,598,000 jobs in the US today. Six percent of that is nearly 8,676,000 jobs that robots would take from us if general employment rates stay the same. The greedy mechanical jerks.
According to The Guardian, jobs that are poised for automation include truck and taxi drivers and customer service representatives working in call centers. And in a related story, it sounds like retail workers might have some similar issues in the near future. Business Insider contributor Kate Taylor writes that the retail giant Walmart has patented an automated system that could potentially displace employees. The company is the largest employer in the United States -- Forbes reported in 2015 that Walmart had 2.2 million employees. The patented system sounds a lot like robotic shopping carts. The carts would be able to maneuver through stores. Customers could summon a cart when they enter the retail space. The cart would then follow the customer around the store, or even guide customers to specific shelves. After a customer unloads the cart, it could whisk itself away to a garage. No longer would you see abandoned shopping carts taking up space in a parking lot. Beyond these features, the cart might be able to perform some other tasks, such as moving inventory around, retrieving requested products and scanning merchandise. These are jobs that human employees would typically perform. So it's possible these carts could replace living, breathing humans. But it's also possible that Walmart would reassign employees to act in customer-facing jobs. This could help cut down on problems the company has encountered recently, such as shoplifting or violence in stores. And that's an important thing to remember -- even if machines eliminate 6% of jobs in the US, we may create more jobs than we lose.
It will probably be difficult to transition people from one type of job to another, but not impossible. So perhaps we aren't quite on the brink of the robo apocalypse just yet. On the other hand, that day is coming. Ultimately, pretty much every job is destined to become automated. The ones that will be first to go will be repetitive jobs that are easy to replicate mechanically or digitally. The more complex and variable a job is, the more challenging it is to automate. Perhaps we will reach the tipping point in just five years. That's it for today! If you'll excuse me, I need to go do something that makes me look busy so that a robo video host doesn't replace me
According to The Guardian, jobs that are poised for automation include truck and taxi drivers and customer service representatives working in call centers. And in a related story, it sounds like retail workers might have some similar issues in the near future. Business Insider contributor Kate Taylor writes that the retail giant Walmart has patented an automated system that could potentially displace employees. The company is the largest employer in the United States -- Forbes reported in 2015 that Walmart had 2.2 million employees. The patented system sounds a lot like robotic shopping carts. The carts would be able to maneuver through stores. Customers could summon a cart when they enter the retail space. The cart would then follow the customer around the store, or even guide customers to specific shelves. After a customer unloads the cart, it could whisk itself away to a garage. No longer would you see abandoned shopping carts taking up space in a parking lot. Beyond these features, the cart might be able to perform some other tasks, such as moving inventory around, retrieving requested products and scanning merchandise. These are jobs that human employees would typically perform. So it's possible these carts could replace living, breathing humans. But it's also possible that Walmart would reassign employees to act in customer-facing jobs. This could help cut down on problems the company has encountered recently, such as shoplifting or violence in stores. And that's an important thing to remember -- even if machines eliminate 6% of jobs in the US, we may create more jobs than we lose.
It will probably be difficult to transition people from one type of job to another, but not impossible. So perhaps we aren't quite on the brink of the robo apocalypse just yet. On the other hand, that day is coming. Ultimately, pretty much every job is destined to become automated. The ones that will be first to go will be repetitive jobs that are easy to replicate mechanically or digitally. The more complex and variable a job is, the more challenging it is to automate. Perhaps we will reach the tipping point in just five years. That's it for today! If you'll excuse me, I need to go do something that makes me look busy so that a robo video host doesn't replace me
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