Comment Lack of skills, not robots, will be biggest concern
METROPOLIS, released in 1927, was one of the first full-length science fiction movies.
The brainchild of visionary director Fritz Lang, it featured a robot which causes havoc and destruction.
And the film really was a trailblazer. Because tales about mankind creating robots and then regretting it have been a staple of science fiction ever since.
The real world is not quite as frightening. But there’s still concern about the effect that robots will have on our society.
It’s been predicted that they could lead to the loss of 11 million UK jobs.
Black Country MP Tom Watson has been investigating. In his role as Labour’s Deputy Leader, he set up an inquiry called the Future of Work Commission to look into how technology is going to change the labour market.
Members include business and trade union leaders, and academics from Oxford and Harvard. It’s quite a brains trust.
Publishing the inquiry’s findings this week, Mr Watson was upbeat. He even told his audience: “I’m asking you to embrace an android.”
The West Bromwich East MP said: “If the heavy lifting and routine tasks of the future can be carried out by 21st century machines, then the workforce of the future will be free to focus on activities that generate greater economic benefits for a greater number of people.
“That is liberating. So I suppose what I’m really saying is – robots can set us free.”
That means free to pursue working lives in which everyone gets to learn new skills on a regular basis, he said. And creative thinking will become an increasingly important skill, allowing us to pursue fulfilling and rewarding jobs.
It’s understandable that Mr Watson chose to focus on the positive. His goal, after all, is to encourage future governments to pursue the policies needed to take us to the sunlit lands he described.
For example, that would include ensuring schools prioritise creativity and interpersonal skills – things that machines are bad at.
The report proposed solutions rather than focusing on the problems, and that’s wise.
However, if you’re not a natural optimist then it did make grim reading.
Because the problem it identified isn’t really about technology at all. It’s about the difficulty in ensuring the benefits of economic growth are shared throughout society, an issue that already worries politicians on the left and the right.
When we talk about robots, that means more than machines that look like humans. Computer systems which are able to make decisions by following complex rules, called algorithms, are also taking on some of the work currently done by human beings, and doing it more efficiently.
All this new technology will allow productivity to increase – at least in some sectors of the economy.
For the people who own the machines, this is great. And it’s not as if future businesses will be limited to one individual and their comput- ers. There will still be jobs for skilled managers and staff.
But while their productivity will be sky high, there may be a severe lack of useful, interesting and well-paid work for the rest of us.
The report warns: “Without policy intervention, the power of the high-skilled over the low-skilled will increase further. Technological change is likely to both raise the productivity of high-skill workers and increase competition for low-skill jobs which are not susceptible to automation.
“Low-skill workers, who make up 45 percent of the labour market, are particularly vulnerable. Without intervention, low skilled workers are at risk of a severe and sustained decline in their wages.” It doesn’t have to be this way. Mr Watson’s Commission drew up a range of recommendations, but they fall into two camps. First, Government needs to help ensure more good jobs are created, by encouraging businesses to innovate and by ensuring children and adults are taught the skills these jobs will need.
Secondly, there needs to be a revolution in workers’ rights. This would include giving people the same legal rights whether they are classed as an employee, an agency worker or a contractor, and changing the law so that directors of a firm have a legal duty to consider the interests of every “stakeholder”, including employees, rather than simply the interests of shareholders.
These are just some of the proposals. The overall effect might be to end the growth of the “gig economy”, in which staff are treated as freelancers selling their labour on a temporary basis, and encourage a return to the days of old-fashioned jobs, with permanent contracts and employment rights, for people who want one.
It’s an issue that may become even more pressing as new technology emerges. But it addresses problems facing society right now.
I’m asking you to embrace an android... what I’m saying is – robots can set us free. Tom Watson