Future Calling: Humans vs Robots

Saya is a receptionist. Baxter is an assembly line worker. Bob is a security guard. And Pepper greets you at Softbank stores’ entrance. Wondering who are these people and why are they being mentioned? Well, they are being mentioned precisely because they are not ‘people’, I mean not humans. Saya, Baxter, Bob, and Pepper are all Robots. And I am not so much concerned about them though I might be interested in them, but my concern is for people, humans who should have been in their place.

Rapid automation is making lives simpler and easier taking away the drudgery of daily chores from us. I don’t have to worry anymore about my receptionist not showing up in the office if I have Saya with me, or my uncle who is always anxious about the Workers Union in his factory if he gets few Baxters for himself. But on a human note, I guess we need to worry.

Our lives might become easier but what about those who will lose out their livelihood in the process of bestselling automation. Futurist Jerry Kaplan says, Nothing to worry. Speaking at South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, Kaplan pointed out that 90percent of Americans will lose their jobs to robots and we should all be happy about it. “If we can program machines to read x-rays and write news stories, all the better. I say good riddance,” Kaplan said. “Get another job!” Mighty optimism, I say.

But won’t it be a ‘good’ only for rich? What will the rest 90 percent do? How will they “Get another job”? Interestingly Kaplan has a solution for this as well. Job Mortgages.“People should be able to learn new skills by borrowing against future earnings capacity,” he said.

Artificial Intelligence is witnessing exponential growth and some in the tech world are getting jittery. These include names like British Scientist Stephen Hawking who himself uses a basic form of AI, and Elon Musk, chief executive of rocket-maker Space X. Prof Hawking says that early and basic forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but there could be fatal consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans. In the long run, Musk also sees AI as “an existential threat”

For positivists like Dr. Kaplan who has a Ph.D. in computer science specializing in artificial intelligence and a fellowship at the Center for Legal Informatics at Stanford University Law School, these fears are overblown and highly exaggerated. “Machines automate tasks, not jobs. Many of these tasks require straightforward logic or hand-eye coordination,” Kaplan said. “If your job requires a narrow set of duties, then indeed your employment is at risk.”

He drew an analogy juxtaposing licensed nurse duties (a lengthy list of activities that involve empathy and problem solving) with bricklayer duties (laying bricks). Kaplan put up a slide to show what he sees as the future workplace. On the slide is something that looks like Pac-Man eating a lawyer, a driver, and a doctor. Behind it, it has to spit out “online reputation manager” and blogger.“This doesn’t make society worse, it makes it better,” he said. “It may take only 2% of the population to accomplish what 90% of our pop does today. So what?”

Kaplan believes new jobs will emerge and cited his daughter’s job as an example. She is a social media manager, no such job existed a decade back. He also mentioned other employment options that will remain: tennis pros, party planners, flower arrangers, and undertakers.

“AI is simply a natural expansion of longstanding efforts to automate tasks,” he said.

“Robots don’t cook or make beds. They don’t have independent goals and desires,” he added. “They aren’t marrying our children.”

Convincing! I don’t know.