Technology has taken over human life in most obvious manner. It is being used in all walks of life and without exaggeration, it has made our lives far more easier than that of our ancestors who actually burnt the midnight oil to ensure their survival yet lived a precarious life. Today science and technology are flourishing to its full bloom. We have become excessively dependent on scientific gadgets for our everyday living. This has unsettlingly left a negative impact on new generations. We have stopped utilizing our energies and a massive decline in productivity and creativity has been witnessed during last few years.
It has become a trend worldwide to use machines to get our every single task done with minimal effort. This idea has lead to the development in the field of robotics. Seeing these circumstances, it is predicted that robots would be able to perform all the tasks a man could do with even greater perfection and in lesser time period. The idea seems to be very fascinating, but it could potentially have terribly drastic consequences in near future. Researches have been conducted to study how robotics and artificial intelligence is making their way to take over the roles of humans, which would ultimately create a fear of job loss among workers. This blog will help you learn about the role of robots in creating insecurities among workers.
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Invention of Robots
The word robot comes from Czech word robota meaning “forced labour”. The first ever robot was developed by George Devol, an American inventor and founder of first robotic company : Unimation, in 1960s. An industrial robot is usually not in humanoid shape, but it is capable of performing human tasks with strength, accuracy and speed of a machine. The first robot developed, was used by an automotive company to lift heavy loads. Later they developed many versions of the same model that were used mainly in automotive sector. Now a days artificial intelligence has revolutionized the concepts of robotics.
Introduction and development of robots has been accelerated after experiencing the positive impact they had in the industry. Robots have become tremendously popular as they offer many advantages such as increased accuracy, improved decision making, predictive maintenance and outcomes and greater efficiency within less time. Considering the better results with less input, industries are deploying more robots, in fact human’s role is widely taken over by the robots.
Are workers really insecure?
It has been observed that uptake of Robots has increased globally about threefold over the past two decades as they bring about benefits in terms of productivity and economic growth. According to a study, robots could take over 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world by year 2030. This is becoming a matter of great concern for many of the industry workers. Keeping in view, high inflation and unemployment rate, introduction of robots as replacement of human skills is posing serious threat to human’s struggle for survival.
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It was predicted that by 2030 nearly 1.5 million jobs would have been lost to robots in United States alone. Super powers like China has a huge number of robots installed in the workplace. This installation of robots has negatively effected the jobs and wages. Researchers found that for every robot installed per 1000 workers in the US, a decline of 0.42% in wages and 0.2% in employment to population ratio was seen. Robots are effecting particularly blue collar workers while white collar Jon’s are comparatively less effected.
Now the question here is if workers should be really insecure? If we analyze the scenario in practical context, it dawns upon us that no matter how better a robot performs it still has its limitations. Robots are in fact human made machines that at some level need humans to operate them. Robots can no way completely take over the workers skills. In many fields such as medicine, epidemiology, pathology, administrative fields and many more, it is near to impossible to recruit robots at large.
Furthermore, installation of robots concerns affordability. Developed countries have enough resources to bring robots in practice alongside the workers and installing robots doesn’t necessarily require removing workers from their jobs. As group of researchers believe that robots would create more jobs for humans. If we talk about the developing countries, their industry has not flourished enough to function without man power and labours. For such economies, robots do not prove cost effective and they have to invest far greater on automation than they are spending on workers.
This does not mean that developing or underdeveloped countries are not bringing technology in use, but the rate of technological advancement is comparatively low and it shouldn’t cause any insecurity among the workers regarding their jobs. Moreover, countries where the main source of economy is agriculture, needs higher worker recruitment as in agricultural prospects machines have very limited function even if machines are used to perform 50% of the task other half of the task cannot be completed without humans.
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How humans are superior to Robots
Humans are curious and creative, they have the ability to think and create new ideas which a robot can’t do. Moreover, while working in a social setting, empathy and emotional support of fellow human beings is a blessing which is necessary for making new connections and expanding the business while robots do not have any such abilities. Economic growth does not only depends on the effective functioning, but it also requires timely decision making according to the situation. Human power to take right decisions at the right moment can promote more open ended scenarios. Also, tasks that require cognitive skills, creativity and judgement cannot be performed by robots that are designed to perform repetitive rule based functions.
Conclusion
Self-affirmation is the first step to get out of the job insecurity. Realizing that humans possess some really unique characteristics and they are often underestimated can help the workers to think positive about themselves. Robots taking over human’s role completely is out of debate. However, humans and robots working together can produce desired results. Humans need to focus on skills that robots cannot perform, polish creative thinking skills, welcome new ideas and learn to adjust with change. Working with passionate and positive mind set will help the workers to have better opportunities and less fear of losing jobs.
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