Debate on robots and jobs heats up
Experts warn of dire social consequences
WASHINGTON: Are robots coming for your job? Although technology has long affected the labour force, recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are heightening concerns about automation replacing a growing number of occupations, including highly skilled or “knowledge-based” jobs.
Just a few examples: self-driving technology may eliminate the need for taxi, Uber and truck drivers, algorithms are playing a growing role in journalism, robots are informing consumers as mall greeters, and medicine is adapting robotic surgery and artificial intelligence to detect cancer and heart conditions.
Of 700 occupations in the United States, 47% are at “high risk” from automation, an Oxford University study concluded in 2013.
A McKinsey study released this year offered a similar view, saying “about half ” of activities in the world’s workforce “could potentially be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies.” Still, McKinsey researchers offered a caveat, saying that only around 5% of jobs can be “fully automated”.
Another report by PwC this month, concluded that around a third of jobs in the United States, Germany and Britain could be eliminated by automation by the early 2030s, with the losses concentrated in transportation and storage, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade. But experts warn that such studies may fail to grasp the full extent of the risks to the working population.
“The studies are underestimating the impact of technology, some 80% to 90% of jobs will be eliminated in the next 10 to 15 years,” said Vivek Wadhwa, a tech entrepre-
Artificial intelligence is moving a lot faster than anyone had expected.
Vivek Wadhwa
neur and faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley.
“Artificial intelligence is moving a lot faster than anyone had expected,” said Wadhwa, who is the co-author of a forthcoming book on the topic.
“Alexa (Amazon’s home hub) and Google Home are getting amazingly intelligent very fast. Microsoft and Google have demonstrated that AI can understand human speech better than humans can.”
Warnings of dire social consequences from automation have also come from the likes of physicist Stephen Hawking and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, among others.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem historian Yuval Harari writes in his 2017 book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow that technology would lead to “superfluous people” as “intelligent non-conscious algorithms” improve.
“As algorithms push humans out of the job market,” he writes, “wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality.” — AFP