The problem with automation is not "losing your job"
The problem is after that. Or sometimes before.
Last year, Amazon presented several new warehouse robots, that among other things use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve problems like “navigating around human workers”. Commenting that announce, Wired wrote that, while it may seem that “machines are poised to take over in warehouses” and that AI holds significant promise for making robots far more capable in general, the perspective for human workers aren’t that bad. Among other things, proof for this argument include:
- the fact that “machines only automate work that requires limited intelligence”
- an expert saying “I am not aware of a single person that has lost their job because of some AI-enabled robot. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened, but it’s just far too rare and far too experimental."
The elephants in that room
First of all, the wording of that and many other articles on the same topics is misleading: if traditional jobs risk to disappear, it’s because of AI, and even more precisely of software, not of “robots”. It’s robots and even AI that are just one of the countless applications of software, not the other way around.
This, however, is a minor issues. There real flaws in the picture that article paints are these:
- cinically speaking… never mind warehouses: software, in or outside robots, is making many more jobs disappear than warehouse ones. Including, or starting from, “white collar” jobs that were often less stressful, more rewarding and better paid than warehouse ones
- if it’s in good faith, that “I’m not aware of a single person losing her job because of AI-enabled robots” argument is quite naive. The real, long-term problem is people unable, in the coming years, to find their first or next job, exactly because of software and other forces (*)
(*) In case you are wondering…
As far as I am concerned, point 2 above does NOT mean that we should go full luddite, back to living without AI, or software in general. Not at all. It just means that maybe it’s high time to seriously redefine, or accept, what work should really mean.
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
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