48 Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and the Workplace of the Future
48 Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and the Workplace of the Future
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Discuss the application of robotics and the workplace changes it will bring
- Identify artificial intelligence applications in the workplace
- Explain the ethical challenges presented by the use of artificial intelligence
As we have seen earlier in this chapter, general advances in computer technology have already enabled significant changes in the workplace. In this module, we will look at how future workforce demographics may be affected by existing and emerging technologies. The combination of automation and robotics has already changed not only the workplace but everyday life as well. It also comes with a host of ethical and legal issues, not least being where humans will fit in the workplace of tomorrow. Managers of the future may ask, “Does my company or society benefit from having a human do a job rather than a robot, or is it all about efficiency and cost?”
Robotics and Automation in the Workplace
Advances in the field of robotics—a combination of computer science, mechanical and electronics engineering, and science—have meant that machines or related forms of automation now do the work of humans in a wide variety of settings, such as medicine, where robots perform surgeries previously done by the surgeon’s hand. Robots have made it easier and cheaper for employers to get work done. The downside, however, is that some reasonably well-paying jobs that provided middle-class employment for humans have become the province of machines.
A McKinsey Global Institute study of eight hundred occupations in nearly fifty countries showed that more than 800 million jobs, or 20 percent of the global workforce, could be lost to robotics by the year 2030.
The effects could be even more pronounced in wealthy industrialized nations, such as the United States and Germany, where researchers expect that up to one-third of the workforce will be affected. By 2030, the report estimates that 39 million to 73 million jobs may be eliminated in the United States. Given that the level of employment in the United States in mid-2018 is approaching 150 million workers, this potential loss of jobs represents roughly one-quarter to one-half of total current employment (but a smaller share of employment in 2030 because of future population and employment growth).
The big question, then, is what will happen to all these displaced workers. The McKinsey report estimates that about twenty million of them will be able to transfer easily to other industries for employment. But this still leaves between twenty million and more than fifty million displaced workers who will need new employment. Occupational retraining is likely to be a path taken by some, but older workers, as well as geographically immobile workers, are unlikely to opt for such training and may endure job loss for protracted periods.
In developing countries, the report predict