MAN VS. MACHINE
Machines aided by artificial intelligence are all set to replace humans in several fields. This could wipe out hundreds of professions from the job market and leave lakhs, especially those who are low skilled, jobless.
Come 2050, a researcher predicts, the human race would cease to exist. It is not because of a nuclear holocaust or due to an extraterrestrial body hitting the earth. Researcher Jeff Nesbit, a former director of the US-based National Science Foundation, believes our extinction would be triggered by our own creation: artificial intelligence.
He claims that the human race would either cease to exist by 2050 — or become immortal. While both the scenarios appear to be taken from science fiction, it is a fact that we are staring at a human crisis caused by automation and robotics, which are the result of machine intelligence.
A study by Oxford University suggested that 100 professions or occupations are at risk of being eliminated by automation in the future. All jobs that don’t require exceptional thought processes and those that could be accomplished by analysing data with a simple algorithm could be replaced. People whose jobs require them to come up with solutions on a caseby-case basis can rest assured that their jobs will not be replaced.
“We are on the cusp of a technological revolution. There were protests in India when computers were introduced in the 1980s as typists and others feared that they would be replaced by smart machines. Now, automation would bring a tsunami of change that could sweep off many jobs,” said an HR head of a telecom company.
Blue collar jobs and simple office jobs are under greater threat, which could leave crores of people jobless. Imagine a scenario where an e-commerce company needs to deliver the purchase. Right now, the courier partner of the ecommerce company delivers the purchase at the address. Over a period of time, there is a possibility of a drone dropping by the destination to deliver the package. Similarly, automation can write codes that software engineers do, putting their jobs at risk
Its impact is already being seen in the Indian IT industry — the first sector in the country to witness its effect, as Indian companies compete directly with major US companies.
A statement made by Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka sums it up: “We have to eliminate our own work to automation, improve productivity, deploy the improved productivity to innovation. Instead of 10 people, what if we have three people to work on it? If we don’t have the software, then some others will take advantage... If you look at the 3.5 million people in our industry, the only thing that I see in the future is automation.”
True to his words, several major IT companies have either trimmed their hiring or sacked employees. In 2016, Infosys “released” — a synonym in IT circles for sacking — 9,000 employees. Wipro has moved some 4,500 engineers into different projects in one year, while automation could hit 14,000 employees at IBM.
According to a report by HfS, a global analyst, 6.4 lakh people in the Indian IT sector would lose their jobs by 2021.
Low-skilled jobs, which involve following set processes and are repetitive, face the biggest threat. Thirty per cent of such jobs may be lost to automation. The number of medium-skilled jobs that require some amount of human judgement in processing and dealing with more challenging problems will increase by eight per cent. High-skilled jobs which require creative problem
solving, analytics and critical thinking will increase by 56 per cent. While the threat to IT jobs may not be immediate, you cannot consider your job safe as yet. The Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology listed out 100 jobs which at great risk of being replaced by technology.
Some of those jobs include telemarketers, insurance underwriters, cargo and freight agents, photographic process workers and processing machine operators, brokerage clerks, packaging and filling machine operators and tenders, fitters, assembling staff, milling and planning machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic, credit analysts, accountants, telephone operators, real estate brokers, cashiers, farm labour contractors, paralegals and legal assistants.
All these jobs involve routine work. Though credit analysts require deeper analysis to take a decision on granting a loan to an applicant, algorithms can be trained to analyse data from sources like bank statements and credit reports to analyse creditworthiness.
The jobs which are unlikely to be replaced are the ones which require deeper analysis and creative work.
These include doctors, dentists, nurses, biochemists, biophysicists, engineers, except those relating software, jobs related to religion, mental health, and psychology, artists, architects, interior designers, directors, photographers, physical therapists, fashion designers, teachers, scientists, creative writers, public relations practitioners, computer research scientists, computer systems analysts, first-line supervisors, mechanics, fund-raisers, social workers, sales agents, and recreation therapists.
LOW-SKILLED JOBS, WHICH INVOLVE FOLLOWING A SET PROCESS AND ARE REPETITIVE, COULD VANISH. A REPORT SAYS 6.4 LAKH PEOPLE IN THE INDIAN I.T. SECTOR WOULD LOSE JOBS BY 2021, WHILE OVER 100 PROFESSIONS ARE AT RISK OF EXTINCTION IN THE FUTURE.