- 02/07/2018
- Category: Commentaries
Coming a long way through various economic and social disruptions, we are now entering a new epoch full of promises and threats – an era of technology and automation. The prospect of machines demolishing jobs and causing severe cases of unemployment have haunted people since decades ago. Machines are not just tools to increase workers’ productivity anymore, but instead become workers themselves. The possibility of a whole jobless future is elaborated persuasively in this book by Martin Ford, a futurist and a former Silicon Valley software entrepreneur. With well-researched basis on today’s economy, Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future is as compelling as it is thought-provoking to anyone with interests in the economy, job sector, and the future.
Disruptions such as industrial revolutions, mechanization of agriculture, and globalization have always changed the face of occupations. These transitions have diminished millions of jobs and forced workers to find another job in a different field, for instance from agriculture to manufacture and into the service sector. However, during these transitions, unemployment was often a problem but never caused permanent damage. These disruptions created new jobs with usually better qualities than before, in terms of skills and wages. Nonetheless, technological advances have moved forward rapidly to the point that not only low-wage jobs are in threat of being replaced by machines, but almost all occupations have become vulnerable. Here’s where the problem ensues.
Rise of the Robots can be understood as a book with three main discussions: the background and nature of information technology as well as the impact on the economy; the challenges of automation wave faced by several sectors; and suggestions of what the future may hold. In the first main discussion, Ford opens with a look at automation movement by robots. Case studies have shown increased productivity and decrease in the number of workers in manufacturing and service sectors, all thanks to automation. This chapter is followed by a comprehensive look into trends and factors in the impact of automation on the economy. ‘Deadly’ economic trends include stagnant wages, rising inequality, and declining incomes for fresh-graduates. Other factors that could be the reason for the changes are globalization, financialization, and politics.
In the second main discussion, it is explained that information technology has a changing impact and thus became an unprecedented force for disruption. The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapter in Rise of the Robots each explain how automation is bringing increased challenges to white-collar jobs, the higher education industry, and healthcare sector. High-skilled jobs are examined to be at risk of the impact of automation, particularly with the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Automation could also mean cheaper university education and less human errors in healthcare through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), artificial intelligence, and big data. Algorithms as the key are believed to one day be as smart as humans and replace humans in certain jobs. However, the promises of automation are met with complex challenges and all the pros and cons.
We may be currently undergoing what used to be referred to as “the future,” but now we are facing an even further future where our economic fundamentals are at stake. The last main discussion elaborates how historically new technological disruptions destroyed old jobs and created new ones, but Ford suggest that such patterns will no longer happen. New technologies require fewer people to operate, so permanent damage to employment may take place in the long run. Despite the beautiful promises of efficiency by automation for the economy and industry, Ford mentions statistical evidence that inequality can be harmful to economic growth. Declining number of jobs can bring a fall in businesses, remembering that workers are also consumers and robots aren’t. The following chapters further suggests theoretical and speculative insights on how a widely automated world with advanced AI systems bring challenges in the near future.
To answer the threat of jobless future, more training and education – that are once historically-correct – are no longer the adequate solution. Overall, this book successfully brings up the past and what has happened, the present and what is now happening, and the future and what may happen soon. It provides useful evidence and further references, as well as credible suggestions. Reading this book will make us understand that robots are not the enemy to human’s jobs – the fault is in our economy, industry and its capitalism. Here is where the most significant challenges lie and where we march on to the future to tackle it.
Editor: Atin Prabandari, MA
