Job Automation Isn't As Bad As You Might Think. The Artificial Intelligence Essay Example

Job automation took over manufacturing, and it's beginning to happen with other fields as well. Many people wonder whether this technological progress is actually progress at all: is it taking more jobs that it creates? Repetitive and manual jobs are at risk. But, jobs that are replaced by technology have many major benefits. Job automation, although seemingly taking jobs, is actually helping the world by improving educational standards, creating jobs, and lowering unemployment.

The robots are not here to take our jobs; they just are here to improve them. Lower level laborers will be replaced with higher skilled workers. The problem is, as Jong-Wha Lee states, is that “The challenge today lies in the fact that the production and use of increasingly advanced technologies demand new, often higher-level skills, which cannot simply be picked up on the job.”  Education is necessary for humans to compete with these mechanical laborers. It improves the world by requiring new workers to go further with their education. “The artificial intelligence revolution will be hugely disruptive, but it will not make humans obsolete.” (Jong-Wha Lee) Humans just need to adapt to the change that is presented to them. This is all good, it just means that education is going to be a necessary change. Improving educational standards for the modern workplace is one way that job automation is improving the world.

Secondly, contrary to common belief, robots and automation create entire fields for new workers. According to Daniela Hernandez, “AI opens up opportunities for many new jobs to be created -- some that we can imagine and many we probably can't right now.” This suggests growth, development, and definiently new jobs. Also, iRobot has roughly quadrupled its staff of software engineers. These new careers are coming as a result of new tech. 

But, in the short term it is easy to see how one could think that jobs will be taken away. For while Amazon continues to open warehouses around the globe and staff them with many thousands of human beings, estimates are that every human on the Amazon payroll--whether full- or part-time--displaces two humans at traditional brick-and-mortar operations. ( Ellen Ruppel Shell) Looking at this, it could seem that jobs are being lost. But that isn't correct: they aren't being lost, just moved. Others claim that  ¨... these warehouses are also becoming automated, as are any number of other places with jobs once filled by the vast majority of what economists call "middle-skill workers," the very people who once populated--and bolstered--the American middle class.¨ (Ellen Ruppel Shell) These jobs are not disappearing, they are just moving out of the factory and into a more modern workforce.

Artificial Intelligence automation are helping the world, and they are here to stay. For example, on March 22, Google’s website had an example of machine learning. If you entered a simple melody, it could autocomplete the harmony. Machine learning isn't hurting this society. But the bottom line is that either way you think of it, robots are here to stay. And if they aren't allowed here in the US, they will take jobs from others in less regulated companies, giving them pricing advantages uncomparable to ours. As time progresses, we will realize that lower skilled jobs just don’t exist anymore. Facing that fact before our foreign competitors gives us the edge to stay ahead in manufacturing.