Jul 10, 2017
The debate about technology being a bane or boon has been going on for years and will continue for years to come. It is a fact that in future technological innovations are going to take away many jobs and will render many people unemployed. But what is still debatable is that will automation take away all our jobs? Of course it will not literally take away ‘all’ our jobs what we are talking about is the majority share.
Few job profiles have already witnessed overtake by automation like: bank tellers, cashiers, accountants, scribes, transcribers etc. and some more are beginning to be replaced like delivery men will lose their jobs to delivery drones and assembly line workers in a factory will lose their job to mechanized conveyor belts with robotic arms. The list is endless.
However, if one looks at it optimistically, it will reduce the effort of manual labor, and also ensure good quality production while maintaining the large quantity as well. At the same time it will create some new job opportunities, people would be needed to repair automated parts, to produce spare parts, to supervise the working or these parts, people will be needed to assemble robotic parts, program them and the department of research and development will bloom.
However flawless it may be, artificial intelligence cannot render the intelligence of its creators, human beings, useless. It is not possible for robots to work as counselors or teachers or nannies or painters or dancers it is not possible to appoint machines in the place of police officers and ministers; however it is possible to delegate some time consuming and tedious yet not very complex tasks to machines.
Maybe automation is the key to future, but the human mind and body cannot be replaced entirely by technology. The future may take away many jobs, but it will open up as many opportunities as well. We can envision a society functions on a base of joint efforts of automation and emotion, mortal and machine and natural and artificial.