By Gary Dickson
For years outsourcing was the primary threat to U.S. jobs. Now, we”re being informed that robots are going to become the primary job killers. According to Dave Evans of Cisco Systems, everyone born after 2000 will eventually face a world where every possible job that can be handled by a robot, will be.
Evans said that technological progress in robotics in the next few years “will be incredibly destructive” for those who are under-educated. He said, “It behooves those organizations and individuals and governments to really get this and embrace this. This is a fundamental shift in how we as a species will operate going forward.” Unfortunately, the U.S. high school dropout rate is extremely high and more young men, even if they do graduate from high school, are opting out of a college education.
If you”re like me, you have a preconceived notion of a robot. Most of us have been conditioned to think of C3-PO of “Star Wars,” Sonny, from “I, Robot” and of course, Terminator Series 800/Model 101 from “The Terminator.” An interesting sidebar on this, according to Michael Moran of the London Times, is that O.J. Simpson auditioned for the role of the Terminator, “?but the producers thought he might be ?too nice” to be taken as a cold-blooded killer.”
Anyway, we appear to visualize robots somewhat in our own image. But, that is not exactly what technology experts, like Evans, are talking about when they say that robots are going to take jobs away from people. Actually they are speaking of machines like ATMs, self-service checkouts, automated telephone attendants and self-service ordering systems. These machines have already displaced plenty, but the number will grow rapidly in the future.
You”ve probably noticed that the large retailers have been training us to use self-checkouts over the past few years. There will come a time when it”s all self-checkout. Some fast food restaurants are already experimenting with self-service ordering. Eventually, we will either push buttons or speak to a machine and then insert the money or card into the slot. There definitely are some robots with appendages, like those in factories where a robotic arm welds pieces of metal together or spins nuts onto bolts. They”re replacing human beings who used to perform these tasks.
Recent youth revolts in the U.K., France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Tunisia and China, over the lack of jobs or cuts in citizen services, have led to violence and at least one case of self-immolation. The future doesn”t look good. It”s a good thing that robot job replacement is a gradual process. There would be worldwide revolution if this happened all at once.
I sometimes wonder if executives of large corporations think about the future, past next quarter”s profit and loss statement. The constant effort to eliminate jobs to reduce costs is killing the economy. It is increasing the number of people who rely on government support to survive and it”s decreasing the inflow of tax dollars to pay for those rising costs.
Companies have been telling us for years that by having us, the customer, pump our own gas, check out our own purchases and talk to a computer, instead of a live person, that it was for our benefit; prices would remain low. That was not always a total lie, but the primary reason was to cut labor and benefit expenses in order to improve the bottom line.
We are not yet ready for a utopian world where robots do our work for us while we lounge by the pool or play golf all day. John and Jane Doe need a job in order to provide food and shelter for their family. Most people need and want to work. Today, jobs are the foundation of a successful society. As the population grows, we need to grow the job number, not obsess about ways to decrease it.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
