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Robots might take our jobs, but maybe we need them to - Utah Business:
AI is no longer just the musings of sci-fi writers. AI is being implemented in automation technology to help with manual labor and other types of tasks. The technology is at a point where nearly every industry could implement it, and many already have. The question is no longer when will this technology exist, but what do we do now that it does?
[...] In 2019, 5,333 workers died on the job in America. The following year, Covid-19 changed the landscape of the workplace, bringing even higher levels of on-the-job risk to nearly every industry.
[...] According to OSHA, about 20 percent of workplace fatalities are in the construction industry. As automation technology advances, making it affordable for business owners to use is essential in order to protect laborers in the industry.
[...] Ben Wolff, CEO of Utah-based Sarcos Robotics, says, “there are significant labor shortages expected in almost every skilled labor industry over the next decade despite the increase in the availability of automation technologies. The US is expecting a 2.4 million worker shortage in manufacturing from 2018 through 2028, as well as a $1.6 trillion global labor productivity shortfall in the construction industry.”
Though a shifting labor market can be scary, human workers are not replaceable. Leading AI researcher, Andrew Ng, says, “despite all the hype and excitement about AI, it’s still extremely limited today relative to what human intelligence is.”
The good news for humans in the workplace is there will always be jobs that require some human support. Not only will there be plenty of manual labor jobs to go around for years to come, but robots will not be able to match human ingenuity anytime soon.
[...] Humans are unique in their creativity, and that creativity is not replaceable in the workplace. However, robots and automation machines will soon become invaluable as they support human workers in manual labor tasks, especially in dangerous environments.
According to Wolff: “Technologies that augment human workers performing manual labor, such as full-body, battery-powered industrial exoskeletons, have the potential to significantly optimize productivity, reduce the likelihood of occupational injuries, equalize the workforce by enabling more diversity, and potentially extend the longevity of workers’ careers when performing skilled labor jobs.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @11:20AM (1 child)
Lawyers are probably a bad example. The judge probably cannot realistically be replaced, but replacing most lawyers with soft AI is more a matter of bureaucracy and tradition than technology. Many surgical tasks will be automated in the relatively near future simply for reliability and safety's sake (many surgeons are using remote technologies already, providing plenty of training data). Customer service is now being widely automated, and the technological gains made will wipe out a broad swathe of positions which amount to little more than human business interfaces.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 24 2021, @01:33PM
Lawyers are almost immune I think, most of the work involves translating what the client wants into what the system can do, and negotiating with the opponent. You need a human for that. Of course there's also going to court, even though this is a small part of what most lawyers do, it's extremely important. Research can be automated, but that's just busy work. It's no different from programmers being able to use Stack Exchange instead of having to look through binders of documentation.
Surgery is similar. Even if a robot is actually wielding the scalpel (and probably doing it better than any human), you still need a doctor to oversee the operation and direct the machine. It's not really even going to increase productivity because it's not like a surgeon is going to do three operations at once. But it might mean that the operating room needs one fewer nurse, because the machine can monitor vital signs and manage its own instruments. Other doctors need to deal with patients - not a task that's easy to automate because the doctor needs to not just understand what the patient is saying but interpret it. The AI could keep notes and do paperwork - great! Doctors need to spend more time with patients and less on support tasks. If there's anything in the medical field that is going to be automated (aside from non-treatment tasks like billing and scheduling) it's probably pharmacists. A robot can do that job, just replace the whole pharmacy with a giant vending machine and a fingerprint scanner.
Customer service is one of those middle jobs that might be easy to automate. Most of the low hanging fruit has already been grabbed, but there's still plenty of room to go. It will probably be more of a gradual erosion. ATMs already replaced tellers for the most part, and AI might be able to replace more bankers, but it won't replace all of them because you run into the strong AI problem again when people start talking about how they can qualify for a home loan.