The Future of Jobs is Scary

Last month I wrote a blog on how driverless cars will be common sooner or later and that human drivers to become obsolete will be a reality : http://wanderlustsajid.blogspot.in/2016/03/the-romance-of-driving-is-going-to-end.html. 

There had been many movies and novels depicting complete takeover of day-to-day work by robots and technologies substituting humans. Hugely successful and critically acclaimed movies like 'Wall-E', 'AI-Artificial Intelligence', 'I,Robot' and this year Oscar winning 'Ex Machina', have all illustrated dystopian world, where Robots elbowed out humans.

In The World Economic Forum of 2016 at Davos, one of the main agenda of discussion was the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Participants representing head of the nations, renowned economist and business leaders around the world, all conceded that Fourth Industrial Revolution is already underway and that it will eliminate millions of jobs over next 5 to 10 years, as a result of technological changes. 

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/a-recap-of-davos-2016/

Less clear was the unanimity of views on the impact of this revolution will have on entire industries, regions and people of the world at large. None was sure whether it will be good or evil. Whether it will bring new opportunities for all or will further aggravate the disparity between rich and poor! It could wipe out the middle class and broaden the gap of inequality.

In fact one of the greatest innovator of technology is Microsoft, whose CEO Satya Nadella himself believes without doubt, that there will be victims of this revolution. US Vice President Joe Biden, fears the same. 

A recent article The Economic Times Wealth, have scaringly elucidated how Technological developments can cut millions of jobs over next 20 years. A Bank of America-Merill Lynch report had earlier predicted that 47% of jobs in US will be taken over by technology. 

While closer home, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its government, slogans "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" and that its one of the principal agenda is minimizing unemployment, is our career safe against the onslaught of technological hyper-advancement? A look at instances where technology wiping out jobs, presents us a fact that the future has arrived and its scary.

• Farmers - India is still an agricultural economy, on which half the population depends. But individual farmers are diminishing. Wealthy landowners and corporations are taking over while reducing employment drastically with higher use of machinery and technology providing cheaper solutions against human labour. In US, currently only 2% population provides farm productivity to entire country due to increased mechanization.
• Factory Workers- Automation has already taken away livelihood of factory workers. In Japan one robot is replacing ten human workforce.

• Teachers - Internet is on the verge of eliminating schools. Tablet PCs are eliminating books and with that publishing industry. Supplementary tuition and coaching is being replaced by apps and online classes.
• Doctors & Health Workers - In 2011, IBM developed a computer system 'Watson', capable of answering questions in natural language, for a quiz show, 'Jeopardy'. It defeated all the former human winners. In 2013, IBM declared Watson will be commercially used for utilization management decisions for treatment of lung cancer. It can diagnose medical conditions, accurately and consistently. Currently 90% of nurses with Watson now follow its guidance. 

• Cashiers - In supermarkets of the West, thousands of cashiers are being replaced by automatic self-checkout systems. It detects the items in the cart using auto-scanners, generates bill and you can pay by swiping your card or by digital wallet. No human cashier required. My brother-in-law in his trip to London last week was flabbergasted by the experience.

• Call Centre Employees - Amelia, an artificial call center agent can speak 20 languages and is programmed to learn from human co-workers. It is estimated that by 2025, softwares like Amelia will replace 25 crore knowledge workers.

• Hospitality Workers - Touch screen menu, robotic waiters, automated system to cook fast food have already started. The Henn-na hotel in Nagasaki, Japan, is the world's first hotel to have only robot staffs.

 

• Lawyers and Accountants - Junior lawyers will go obsolete as software like Legal -Zoom that can perform the task of scrutinizing physical records, collate information and draft legal documents. Accounting and tax-filling softwares have already arrived in India, replacing Accountants and Tax-consultants. Individual Financial Advisors are fastly being replaced by Robo-Advisors.
  
  
  
  
  

Globally, emotional and vociferous debates are going, on the subject of gender disparity of wages. Female workers, sports-persons, corporate honchos and leaders are demanding equality in opportunity, wages and benefits. Quite rightfully so. But the risk of unemployment, be it male or female, is silently looming large. Technology has already proved to be a weapon of mass destruction. In near future, rampant use of technology and robots will give rise to more conflicts : Not just between men and women, but between haves and have-nots, between rich and poor, and between Humans and Robots, inevitably.