AI, Automation and Robots: The harsh reality of Job losses

I am many things in this life; a scientist, a farmer, a teacher, and whenever am all alone in my house, a dancer. In fact, the other day I danced so well to myself that I started fantasizing winning a dancing contest. I also fancy myself an athlete. Anyway, a couple of months ago I entered a final year computer science class to find excited students waiting for me. I teach Artificial intelligence (AI) and few other subjects, but among the subjects I teach AI has always seemed to excite students most. Well, I took the curious students through the introduction of this wonderful subject, and at the end of the lesson, I had more than a half of the class raising hands to ask questions. It wasn’t unexpected. Most of these questions centered on “What does this mean for jobs currently held by humans?” In fact, to quote one smart student; “Sir, if we make machines that think and act like human beings, then it means that at some point machines will take over most of the work that human beings do” ‘You are right’, I interjected. “Then don’t you think that it is working to our disadvantage because it will lead to mass unemployment?” I didn’t want to have discouraged students throughout the semester so I requested them to shelve such concerns until the last lesson of the semester where I will address them. No one would enjoy learning something that is likely to make life harder for them, not in the least students who are in their final year and will be going out to hunt for jobs in few months’ time.

Just around the same time, reading a daily newspaper article by one columnist who described himself as an informatician, I couldn’t help wondering how some of us can be so blind. In the article entitled ‘why the robots won’t replace humans’, the writer rambles on why he thinks that the disruption brought about by Artificial Intelligence and automation of business processes won’t have any impact on jobs currently held by humans. By this, he clearly feeds the millions of the newspaper readers with false sense of security. Well, it was published as an opinion, and opinions, like onions, come in different sizes, colors and types, and everyone is entitled to his.  However, if you meet a man who tells you that your job will remain unaffected as automation, robots and other applications of AI gains traction, just know that that man is either blind, deep asleep or he is burying his head under the sand. Hurry away from such a person as you would were you to find a man sweating profusely under the scorching sun and still tell you (with a forced smile) that the sun rays have no impact on his skin.

Now that I have the liberty of speaking my mind without the fear of discouraging students in their final year of studies, I will state, through this short article, the uncomfortable truth, and be damned for it. To our informatician, and others who hold similar opinion, I would like to draw your attention to several incidences of the recent past, hopefully to pull you to the reality of the imminent shift in the world workforce as shall be brought about by Artificial Intelligence, automation and robots. On the 16^th of March 2018, not feeling like cooking in my house, I walked into a restaurant in Chennai, India, sat down and entered my order on a tablet placed on the table. Two minutes later, Prathyusha – a cobot – walks from the counter to my table with stunning precision and places a plate of steaming chicken biryani before me. Clad in a saree, she asks me, in a perfect Tamil dialect, whether I need anything else to which I reply with a no; she then turns away to serve other customers. I look around. She isn’t alone, they are three waiter robots inside the restaurant, and the fourth is seated at the entrance welcoming customers into the eatery. As I sat there munching my chicken, I couldn’t help wondering how many human waiters were replaced by these efficient mechanical machines, and whether they landed other jobs at a time when jobs are hard to come by.

On the 10^th of December 2019, at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, Scotland, Stephen O’Reilly underwent a surgical operation, one that was different from the traditional surgeries as we know them. Three robotic arms saw, felt and manipulated his body with incredible precision to remove the patient’s thymus gland from between the lungs. Alan Kirk, the surgeon in control of the robot during the operation had this to say regarding robotic surgery

“The vision we get is also far better than any keyhole procedures we have already, so it’s 10 times magnification, 3D, high definition vision – and with the technology of the instruments with 360 degree articulation, and 7 degrees of freedom, it allows us to do things that we couldn’t do even with open surgery sometimes.”

Now, think about 5 years from today when almost all hospitals will be equipped with surgical robots, and tell me whether the hospital owners will still be hiring as many surgeons as they are hiring today. Not forgetting that in the case I have just mentioned above (which is one among many), if the operation was to be done by human surgeons, they would have cut open the patient’s whole chest cavity, keeping him on the hospital bed for a whole week to recover. But with the robot, he was out on the second day. This is because the holes cut by these machines were smaller, precision incredibly high and the incisions way less painful.

On to the transport sector, self-driving technology is projected to eliminate the need for taxi, Uber and truck drivers in the next few years. Self-driving, or just driverless cars combine a variety of sensors (such as radar, lidar, sonar, GPS, odometry and inertial measurement units) to perceive their surroundings.  Advanced control systems interpret sensory information to identify appropriate navigation paths, as well as obstacles and relevant signage. These vehicles are already operational in some parts of the world, and soon they will be all over around us. Should we still tell our drivers that their jobs will be secure in future?

Or do I talk about the legal profession? In a very fascinating article published on forbes entitled ‘Will A.I. Put Lawyers Out Of Business?’, It’s predicted that AI will eliminate most paralegal and legal research positions within the next decade. AI could be used to conduct time-consuming research, reducing the burdens on courts and legal services and accelerating the judicial process. There are also situations where using AI might be preferable to interacting with a human, such as for client interviews. For instance, according to a study by Observer.com, it’s been demonstrated that people are more likely to be honest with a machine than with a person, since a machine isn’t capable of judgment.

Need I go on? A 2019 report by PwC concluded that around a third of jobs in the United States, Germany and Britain could be eliminated by automation by the year 2030, with the losses concentrated in transportation and storage, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade. A McKinsey study released in 2017 offered a similar view, saying “about half” of activities in the world’s workforce “could potentially be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies.” In case you are still not convinced, an Oxford University study concluded in 2016 states that of 700 occupations in the United States, 47 per cent are at “high risk” from automation.

“The studies are underestimating the impact of technology — some 80 to 90 per cent of jobs will be eliminated in the next 10 to 15 years,” – Vivek Wadhwa, a tech entrepreneur and faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University.