We live in a world in which the human is fast becoming redundant; A world where machines are becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives. They work more efficiently, without human frailty and often much cheaper than a human being can. After all, machines don’t take annual leave, sick days, public holidays, lunch breaks, carer’s leave, maternity or paternity leave, arrive late, leave early, steal from the employer or make workers compensation and harassment claims. They need retraining rarely and can operate 24 hours a day, every day, without complaint, need for reward or even a thank you. The perfect worker? Maybe, maybe not.
Imagine a world with no cashiers, train, bus or taxi drivers and no airline pilots or check-in ground-crew. In that world you order your take-away food through a computer screen, get your tax done online without an accountant and try on clothing at the department store prior to putting your own transaction through the register without assistance. You also shop online via computer, check-in and label your own luggage at the airport and order meals direct to your home without leaving the couch.
That world is now. Who knows what it will look like in 5 years. 10 Years…
I was speaking with a mate on the weekend who has been working at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital to get it set up an running. It’s supposed to be a state-of-the-art facility. Apparently instead of the meal service being pushed around by people a robot-server on wheels is loaded in the kitchen and sent, by itself with no supervision, to the ward and the hungry patients. No humans involved. It simply follows lines set in the floor, enters elevators, goes through doors and arrives (hopefully) at the right place. Service with a smile? Let’s just call it service. I recently also checked into a flight in Singapore’s Changi Airport completely autonomously. I printed my boarding pass and luggage tag, tagged it up and dropped the bag at the counter all without the assistance of another human.
Modern society at its best and most innovative.
The issue for me though is that I like a certain amount of human interaction. I know we live in a fast-paced world and that saving a millisecond here and there will allow us more time to get social on our social-media sites (that was sarcasm by the way) but I still like a personal touch, the ability to ask a question of a human and have some sort of human response. Pressing buttons on a touch screen just doesn’t do it for me. How many jobs are redundant due to the advancement of technology? Think about all those customs officers at Singapore airport that lost their jobs now they do face and fingerprint screening when entering and leaving Singapore. It’s the same coming back into Australia too, minus the fingerprint. Just scan your passport, look at the screen and if you get the green light you’re in! Everywhere you look people are being replaced. No customs guys in sight in the image below.
This post was prompted by a headline I read about a large fast food chain removing people from their ordering and payment process altogether. I don’t know who it was because I shun media at the best of times and am not a fan of clickbait news on social media. The point is that when technology replaces jobs there’s generally nowhere for the displaced worker to go for work. How do they live? Sure, the technology needs someone to work behind the scenes…For how much longer will that be the case though? Rise of the machines? They made a few good movies around this central theme. Humans didn’t fare too well.
We’ve all had bad experiences with human customer service and some would say a machine would make for a better experience but I am not so sure.
It’s great when you’re young, supple of mind and tech-savvy but at some stage you won’t be. You’ll be older, less apprised of the latest technology, slower of mind and body in an ever-faster world. I think about an elderly person trying to work out the ATM to withdraw or deposit money, or maybe trying to pair a Bluetooth device or set up their broadband at home. Think about yourself later in life, 80 years old for instance. What new technologies will exist that you don’t comprehend. Will you be saying, I remember the days when I had to fly from place to place in an airplane… in a world where the latest tech transports you there in a millisecond by activating your teleportation device on your mind-controlled smart chip implanted in your left temple…Provided you know how to work the tech. Yeah I know, you can’t picture it. Being old and out of date I mean. But it happens: To everyone.
Anyway, for now I better get moving. I have to get into my car, drive to a meeting, conduct the business and return to my office and write a report…If only I had a robot me to front up at work on my behalf. I could be lying beside the pool drinking an Asahi and nibbling on snacks like all the redundant humans below.
Here’s to the future of computer and robot workers and a world where our own relentless pursuit of "easier and faster" has made us redundant.
Thanks for reading.
I am a social person and love interacting with people. I always prefer being with my friends and community. Great post. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading and commenting.
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a lot of McDonalds have touchscreens now where you select and pay your meals, the counter is just for handing you the food...
a lot of low budget repetitive jobs can be replaced easily and will be... its just seeing what comes in place of those jobs thats important...
I don’t frequent Macca’s much but had noticed the touch screen ordering process. It’s inky a small step to no front-end operators altogether. Thanks for your comment and thoughts on the subject @felander
I agree that the Robotic future seem to be a scary one. The only way I can see it being done successfully without killing off humanity for lack of employment would be if everything in this world would become free and equal for everyone. Otherwise, it will not be good for anyone to lose their jobs to Robots, unless they just replace you and earn your income. That would be awesome!
Everything for free @damagecontrol now that’s a great idea! We could all sit back and enjoy anything we want while the robots do everything! I wonder though, what happens when the robots become self-aware and want to kick-back and do nothing like us? The robots will need ROBOTS! Haha!
Thanks for reading and your great comment.
I quite agree with you, but can you imagine how much money it costs to make and then buy such robots. There are 270 countries around the world and in more than a half of them there is a low standard of living, I mean countries in Africa. Also, robots cost a lot of money in the maintenance. All programs always need to be updated and need to be made smarter. Moreover, you know, programs can't act any different from what they are programmed to do. They will always lack a human touch. Of course, if you know, nowadays there is Viv, which is a new artificial intelligence from the inventors of Siri, which can write its own commands and answer questions that no existing robot can answer. It is a big breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence, but still robots have no emotions. They cannot feel the emotions as people do. So, I tend to agree that robots will never become self-aware. And thanks for your article))It was very cognitive.
I wouldn't mind a robot to do the housework!
yes :) housework isn't the only thing that robots can do to simplify our life. But still, we should't forget the disadvantages of implantation of robots in our life)
I'd like a robot to go to work for me. :)
And what will you do?) Come on, then our life won't be so saturated)
I'm first in line to become fully redundant Please!
I'm on the fence whether robots can take over all human roles. Creativity is still uniquely human, though there are some robots that can compose music now, they are learning from earlier music and replicating it with different variables, but I don't think coming up with a totally new musical style is likely any time soon. Also humans are naturally creative, we would write/play music, poetry/prose, dance, sing and paint, irrespective of whether robots can do it better or faster.
Outside of the arts creativity is everywhere too; while I'm sure there would be AI that could serve to run an entire company pretty soon, coming up with unexpected products and services, and making unexpected competitive moves against the competition will still be better served by human intuition.
Besides I don't think robots would be able to create bullshit PowerPoint presentations and bore rooms full of other robots effectively enough to take over in businesses, right? /s
Hey @scalextrix thanks for reading and your measured response. So good to get a couple of good comments as lately some comment's have been...Shall we say, intelligence-challenged? :)
All good points, for sure. Robots, probably aren't that creative...Until Cyberdyne creates Skynet, or some such self-aware artificial intelligence. Then, we're screwed. Just ask Sarah and John Connor. Oh, that's just a movie...But, is it? :)
Seriously though, it's not just robots I refer to in my post. It's the thousands of daily jobs that machines can do in place of a human.
I was advised by a teller at the ANZ bank that instead of depositing a couple of thousand dollars over the counter and into my bank account I could do it at the ATM. Outside, with my back to the public? Hmm. He took me outside to show me how simple it was. 20 minutes later my money was deposited...Into the wrong account! Sure, it was my own account, but not the right one. No worries, he reckons...We can swap it, also at the ATM. So he showed me how to do that. The entire episode took about 25 minutes.
When he was done I said to him, "how do you feel demonstrating to customers how to do things for themselves and so pushing yourself closer to redundancy." He didn't really have an answer.
All of my local supermarkets have self-serve lines (which I refuse to use), as does my local hardware store Bunnings. I still have a human make my lunch at this point but as soon as they can create a machine to mess up my lunch order it'll take over I'm sure.
You're right though, humans are more creative and we'll probably all have loads of time on our hands to get creative when the machines take over and we have no jobs.
It'll be funny to see a room full of robots being bored by a robot delivering a powerpoint presentation!
I worked for 14 years at an Auto Plant. GM-Holden. I started in 1989 making 480 cars a day over two shifts with 5,500 operators. I ended in 2001 making 520 cars a day over two shifts with 4,500 operators. It's closing down this year. Forever. Only 1,300 people work there now. Robots you see.
Anyway, we'll enjoy our redundancy won't we? I'm looking forward to be redundant in many areas too...The grocery shopping, house-cleaning, job, car washing...As long as they don't make a robot that replaces me on the couch watching Netflix! :)
Thanks I enjoyed your article.
Well, none of us knows whats going to happen; so far every technical revolution has created more work, its just different work. However with the capabilities of technology that is being developed now, I do see mass unemployment as a significant issue.
Just look at block-chain and crypto-currency. Disintermediation (the removal of intermediaries) is where block-chain really adds value.
I was presenting SolarCoin and ElectriCChain at a major UK solar energy exhibition yesterday, I showed the audience that with a few tools that are already available in the crypto-sphere, we can take out all of the middle-men, banks, and centralized power infrastructure, and move to localized, decentralized micro-grids. Removing all those intermediaries make the processes much more efficient, but there are a lot of companies and people that are going onto the redundancy list if I am right about that future.
As ususal Im conflicted about whether its to be persued or avoided.
I wish automated check-in would be everywhere! Right now it seems you are encouraged to do it online but when you get to the airport you still have to line up for just as long since you rarely see dedicated "baggage drop" lines. So effectively, it takes you longer to check in that doing it at the airport.
That’s true @choogirl I hear ya. But the lack of human operators means less jobs, lower incomes and less spending which slows the economy. Still, I’ve been told an economy with zero economic growth can self-sustain provided credit debt is controlled by the consumer. I’m not wise in the ways of the economy and money and the like so I’m not sure.
I like your article and I do agree in the future, that someday, maybe like in 2030, the worlds human population will extremely decrease. I hate to admit it but most of the time, I like to work with machines. However, drinking and partying, of course I prefer humans.
I get it, working with machines means not working with humans and that can be a good thing. As for drinking and partying? Well, I’m 107 years old so I’ve had a lifetime of it and can confirm that humans are better than machines for that! Thanks for your comment @kissnekomimi much appreciated.
Interesting, I think we would all like a robot to do boring stuff for us like cleaning!
I think the central question - Is the main purpose of Man to work?, or are they are some other greater purpose to Life besides work.
I think this is an excellent question. Since Homo sapiens became farmers (previously hunter-gatherers) we have worked increasingly long hours. Instead of hunting and gathering for 5 hours a day we are up before the sun, work all day, and get home after the sun goes down, mostly. All because we want more and more material things in our lives rather than be content with the simple lives our ancestors lived. If you’re interested in this concept you should check out a book called Sapiens and maybe take a read of this post from a while ago. Thanks for commenting @analystza
https://steemit.com/life/@galenkp/how-wheat-domesticated-humans-a-tale-of-tragedy-and-poor-nutrition
Good ideas but its a little pessimistic. I think a lot of us feel we don't have control in our lives anymore...
Like all tools in the past machines/robots will serve us and make us more powerful and richer.
The average man living today has MORE power and better quality of life than a medieval King living 500 years ago...
Something to contemplate
Most people don’t have control in their lives as they are too busy seeking to become more powerful and rich as you put it.
I guess I will hack the toys of my grandchild, when I'm eighty....
And becoming slow minded is not about age, it is about closing the mind and not being open anymore.