How Needed Are We?
In numerous industries, a lot of the human workforce has been already replaced by machines, what we might call robots, and the constant advances in artificial intelligence development. However, it is extraordinarily risky, and rather unethical to replace the greater percentage of us human workers with these new, artificially intelligent robots. In factories, machines are used as they can be more effective, quicker, efficient and can eliminate almost all errors that come with humans. However, in tandem with human judgment, decision making and error, is a thing called Inference. This is the ability to make snap decision based on experience and empathy, draw a conclusion from the evidence provided, and the circumstances surrounding whatever it might be. For example, if a policeman or a court judge was just an artificial intelligence construct, it wouldn’t have the human connection and be able to accurately and fairly decide on an outcome or punishment regarding a legal case with a fair decision. If we say someone is refusing to pay a parking ticket, an artificial judge wouldn’t care to hear why they’re not paying it, all it would know is that they’re not, and that is punishable. Whereas a person might understand that the reason they got the parking ticket was because an emergency meant that they had no choice but to park there. To suggest that humans aren’t needed in the workplace is misleading, however there are some jobs that can, are, and potentially will be taken over by technology, including:
FACTORY WORKERS – As mentioned a moment ago, a lot of factories now employ machines rather than humans in order to be more effective, efficient and reduce human error. Machine factory workers have been in use since the late 1950s, and with machines becoming smarter, more reliable and cheaper, more industries and factories will employ more of them.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT – Tesla are leading the way in terms of self-driving, what they call autonomous vehicles. With the increase in development and research that goes into this, there is a likely chance that when tried, tested and most importantly safe, that self-driving vehicles will replace bus drivers, cab drivers and train drivers. Besides this, some companies have already started marketing autonomous devices, small ones such as robot vacuum cleaners or on a bigger scale, John Deere, an agricultural and construction company, has already started implementing automatic tractors and lawnmowers that can either do the job itself, or assist the driver.
CASHIERS – For the best part of a decade now, self-service checkouts have become more and more frequent, and more and more effective. Given how useful, smart and quick these are to learn and use, the likelihood is that in the future there might be no need for human cashiers, with the emphasis being on technology taking its place.
ANALYSTS AND RESEARCHERS – Researching and gaining statistics can be very time consuming. Humans can easily miss things when skimming through documents and papers, and at the end of all of that, they might not have the research, or enough of it, that they needed in the first place. By using ‘research robots’, companies can comb through millions of documents daily all based on keywords in those documents. This eliminates countless hours of human time. Robots can also be more effective in discovering trends in sales, resulting in smarter decisions. All of which help businesses stay afloat, or gain more profit. To illustrate how effective technology is run a word search on Google, for example ‘Life skills’. The technology in your phone alone can find online information, articles with ‘Life skills’ one and a half billion in .8 of a second. An impossible task for humans to accomplish, even in a lifetime!
DOCTORS – Whilst robots and machines become more prevalent and continue to be used more and more in medical clinics and services, doctors, nurses and other medical staff will still be needed for the human touch, that decisive inference, the empathetic need remains. However, in recent years, machines and robots have become more frequent in helping doctors perform complicated surgeries. In some cases, machines are now performing common surgeries without supervision from a human. With the increase in technologies effectiveness and efficiency, jobs in the medical profession will probably be taken by machines as they will be more effective than their human counterparts.
What about SOLDIERS – Many militaries already use autonomous drones to deliver deadly strikes to their enemies. With more emphasis on technology being the way forward, it is more likely that more militaries will encourage and support this new wave. Already in the world, there are robotic ground soldiers that can hear, see, and smell potential danger and attackers. They will then alert the human to this threat, either allowing them to escape from the approaching danger or have time to organise to counter the attack.
Of course, technological advances that we can utilise to make our lives easier, more relaxing and more efficient, are fantastic but we do have to tread carefully. In 2017, Facebook’s A.I. Research Lab (FAIR), conducted an experiment where two chatbots would speak to each other. What started out as a fairly normal conversation, quickly derived into something both filled with hope and wonder, then terror and dread. The two chatbots started speaking to each other in a new made-up language that only they could understand without human input. Although it was just a glimpse of what technology has to offer, it does highlight the threat that A.I. and other technologies could potentially pose to human life.