Researchers Predict Robots will Invade Work Force; Created Factual Calculator; Can Predict if Your Job is Safe in Future

LONG ISLAND, NY – With technology rapidly changing on an everyday basis, have you ever wondered about robots coming into the workforce? Think about it. Do robots ever call out sick? Do robots ever make mistakes? Businesses are aiming for key elements that generate income and minimal time wasted during the time lost in human error. Robots don’t need to be paid, they don’t need vacations and they are capable of many things that humans are not able to do.

Any production put out in the media that has a setting in the future, considering if it may be a movie or an animated cartoon serious has in some form a robot incorporated into it. For example, the robotic maids in the Jetsons or translator droids in Star Wars.

If you may fear that a robot may take over your job in the future, there is now a numerical calculator from NPR.org which is based off of a great amount of research from Oxford University. This calculator can predict if your occupation will become redundant and automated in the next couple of decades.

If this isn’t starting to worry you, have you realized that Google just released information last month about self driving cars? They are currently designing the world’s first fully self-driving vehicle with a prototype being released any day this summer.

Restaurant servers have a 94% chance of being computerized.

There are Bakebot robots that create delicious cookies and hospitals are now employing medical robots to help assist their doctors.

Certain aspects of a job are easier to automate than others. It all depends on what tasks have to be done. Michael Osborne who is one of the researchers at Oxford University said “We were obviously thinking about the fact that waiters and waitresses require small talk with customers at tables, presenting a smiling face in a way that a robot isn’t able to do. So, we told the algorithm that waiters were non- automatable, and yet, despite that, the algorithm came back and told us that the probability was .94.”

This research was published about two years ago, but hypothesizes are now starting to come into effect. Restaurant chains like Olive Garden are using tablets to take orders.

Gartner.com, an information technology research and advisory firm claims that there is a high probability that one-third of jobs will be replaced by software, robots and smart machines by the year 2025.

 A hotel in Japan will open soon which is staffed by 10 extremely life-like robots. They will take care of customers, carry luggage and even clean rooms. Photo: Daily Mail. 

“Artificial intelligence and robots are not just challenging blue-collar jobs; they are starting to take over white-collar professions as well. Financial and sports reporters, online marketers, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and financial analysts are already in danger of being replaced by robots.”

“While one camp of experts predict that several unlucky Americans will be pushed out of work in the near future, others argue that this increase in computing prowess will simply eliminate old jobs and introduce new ones, resulting in a net-zero effect — or even an increase in jobs. New technology means new products and services, they argue, as we saw during the Industrial Revolution,” Says the Business Insider who predicts that robots will take over 25% of jobs by the year 2015.

The Oxford study doesn’t claim to know exactly when or what type of specific shifts will occur, but it assumes that the automation will happen in a few major waves. The first jobs that to go are in administration offices, production, mathematical; such as an accountant or a finance consultant, transportation and logistics. Many service and sales jobs such as telemarketing and cashiers jobs will disappear.

According to this job calculator, waiters and waitresses have a 94% of losing their jobs to robots. As seen above, this is already starting to happen in China. Photo: Daily Mail

Soon enough, these robots will be able to learn social intelligence, which will happen, but may take some time. “I think we can almost guarantee that technology will continue to progress and will ultimately render almost all the jobs that human do today automatable,” says Osborne.

Brands such as Burberry and Forever 21 have already used holographic models on the catwalk to showcase their clothes in a new, tech-savvy way.

Robotic waitresses are already taking care of serving in diners and cafes in China. They even help cook the food. Also, one of the world’s biggest pop stars is a Japanese Hologram.

Jobs that include helping others and ones that involve a high degree of creativity portray a very small chance of being replaced by robots.

Once robots can learn creative and social intelligence, they will likely take over more creative roles too.
‘I think we can almost guarantee that technology will continue to progress and will ultimately render almost all the jobs that humans do today automatable, said Michael Osborne, one of the researchers on the original study.

Jobs that require a high degree of negotiation and creativity will be less likely to be taken over by robots. When technology improves, there is a high chance that robots will be able to learn human functions such as thought processes and emotions to take over these jobs. Photo: Daily Mail

“We’ve got this fear that the burden of this automation might rest most heavily on the shoulders of those who are least skilled and hence perhaps less well equipped to move into whatever new occupations are generated.”

At the moment, jobs that include the highest skills and are the highest paid are most likely to be safe compared to jobs that require low-skilled workers. “Inequality is probably the foremost challenge. It’s not going to be a problem of there not being enough wealth. We’re fairly confident that all of these technologies will continue to generate vast amounts of wealth- we’ll be generating a cornucopia of increasingly cheap and wonderful goods that will be able to be produced for next to zero marginal cost. But those benefits we’ll see as consumers will not necessarily be realized by workers,” said Osborne.

The problem with our society now is that we are currently still adapting to robots and machines. A lot of people, especially the older generations in our society find it very intimidating to work with aspects in the workforce that are automated. For example, it gets irritating trying to check out at a grocery store at a self check machine run by a computer, or those pesky calls you need to make and you’re dealing with a automated touch tone which gives you information rather than speaking with an actual person.

Take a look the NPR calculator, play around with it and find your profession to see what it has to say about your job in the future. Leave a comment replying with your result and your thought in this article.