A LEGO Mindstorms robot. Robots look cute and safe – for now. Rhett Allain
I didn’t invent the word “robotification”. It already exists. But here is my version of the definition.
Robotification: The process by which tasks normally performed by humans are replaced with machines of some kind. These machines could be mechanical or electronic. Past tense: robotified.
You might think robotification is something that will happen in the future. Nope. It’s already started. Scholars might debate the exact beginning of the robotification of Earth, but we should all agree that it has already started. Just take a moment and look around you. How many things do you interact with that were once done by humans but are now performed by machines?
Here are some examples.
- The ATM – which stands for Automated Teller Machine. Do not call it an ATM machine – that’s redundant.
- Robot arms in car factories. Yes. This is what most people think of when they hear “robot”. Actually, these are pretty dumb as far as robots go.
- Google self driving cars – well, any self driving car. It doesn’t have to be made by Google.
- WolframAlpha. This is sort of like a robot that answers questions and gathers data. It’s also a lot like Siri or Ok Google.
- Self checkout at the grocery store. Oh sure, you are doing part of the work – but a machine is also replacing a human at least in part.
- Watson – the computer. This is the robot-computer that competed in Jeopardy!
Of course there are also examples of robots that are actual robots.
Robots and computers (which I will just call robots from now on) can’t take over everything right now – but they are making progress.
Are Robots Going to Take My Job?
Yes. I think eventually, robots will take over your job. If you work in the fast food industry, I think at this point the whole restaurant could just be run by robots. I’m not trying to insult fast food workers – I’m just trying to tell the truth. A robot can make some chicken nuggets and a robot can take your order. Robots can clean up and they don’t make many mistakes.
Fine, but what about higher level jobs? What about an accountant? I think the days are numbered for accountants. Can a robot read? Yup. Can a robot calculate? You bet. Can a robot follow the rules associated with taxes and payments and stuff? Absolutely. Just look at online programs like TurboTax. What about musicians and artists? Yes, robots can sort of create music already.
Will we have robot physics professors? I don’t know. I guess eventually robots will be smart enough to help humans learn, but this seems like a difficult task (it’s tough even for humans to teach humans). What about writing a blog post that uses video analysis to analyze the motion of the Millennium Falcon? Well, that might be the last job that robots take over.
I think this video has a nice summary of robots taking over our jobs.
See. I’m not the only one that thinks robots are going to take over.
When Will the Robots Finish Their Takeover of Society?
Who knows. Some changes are slow. The industrial revolution didn’t happen overnight. The conversion from horse transportation to automobiles took some time also. But what about the information revolution? That seems like it was much faster. If you think back to 1995, how many people were using the Internet in some way? Not many. In just 20 years, the Internet is everywhere. So, these changes can sometimes be fast.
What Will We Do When the Robots Take Over?
I think this depends on how the robots take over. I can see three futures.
Star Trek Robot Future. In Star Trek, there are surely robots. But I think the robots just do jobs so that the humans can do different things. It’s sort of the like the invention of farming. Once humans invented farming, they could have some people farm and other people do other things like art and theater and plan how to take over the world. In Star Trek, the robots are like that. They let humans do human things. It’s awesome. Plus they have transporters.
RoboCop – WALL-E Future. In both of these movies, the big corporation is in charge. If robots are created and used by businesses so that they can be more profitable, then this is what we could get. I fear that this might be the case. Maybe Taco Bell will build the first fully robot restaurant. Before we know it, Taco Bell controls everything and everything is done for profit. In this case, we could end up as either rich multi-trillionaire CEOs or as peasants that do whatever Taco Bell wants. FYI – I am just using Taco Bell as an example. I’m not saying Taco Bell is evil.
Terminator – Matrix Future. Maybe the robots get to a point where they don’t even need humans. Maybe they decide that humans just get in the way and need to be eliminated (or controlled). Next thing you know we have terminator robots. Yes, this is bad. Oh, this is what Ultron does too – but in that world at least they had the Avengers to fight him.
I guess there is one other optional future. What about a future where WE become the robots? What if we figure out a way to incorporate robots and humans together to make something that isn’t human and isn’t a robot. This could end up like the Star Trek Borg or maybe something else.
What Can We Do to Prepare for Robotification?
Here is the important part. I think we could try to prevent robotification, but it might be too late. Just imagine trying to get everyone to stop using smart phones. Yes, that would be difficult.
Instead, I think the best plan is to educate in a way that is perpendicular to the direction of robotification. What does that even mean? Well, at first robots will take over simple things. So, we shouldn’t educate people to focus on simple things – robots will do those jobs. However, this also means that we shouldn’t be “job training” in education – especially in higher education. Unfortunately, this is what many administrators are pushing for. “Make the students ready for the real world.” But the real world is the future and the future is unknown. Preparing for the real world is preparing for the past. The past will be robots.
If colleges and universities stick with the “real world ready” strategy, they will be graduating students that will have to compete with robots. Guess what… robots will probably be cheaper and better than many college graduates.
As I’ve said many times, college isn’t about getting ready for a job. A university degree is about learning to be more human. This means that humans that work on a college degree should take all sorts of classes. They should learn to paint and write a poem. They should be able to explore the world with science. They should practice communicating and reflecting on our past. These are the things that make us human.
Maybe in the future we will have robots to take care of the things that we don’t want to do. This will leave us time to be more human. We can explore the universe and create things. It will be awesome. But what about money? Who needs money when you have robots.
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