Feb 24 2016 : The Times of India (Chennai)
Drone do that! Robots killing jobs in America
Chidanand Rajghatta
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Washington:
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There was a robot invented in America that catches thieves. In the US, it caught 10 thieves; in Australia, it caught 100. In China, it caught 1,000. In India, someone stole the robot. You may want the joke to come true because robots are coming to steal your jobs, particularly if your work is mostly repetitive, mechanical, motorised; something that is programmable.It's no secret that automation is taking over low-wage jobs, but as robots and drones get increasingly sophisticated, a White House economic report released on Monday has put numbers on a trend that should give pause to anyone who thinks low-wage manufacturing is the panacea to economic salvation in India, or anywhere else for that matter.
In the US, there's an 83% chance that automation will take a job with an hourly wage below $20, a 31% chance automation will take a job with an hourly wage between $20 and $40, and just a 4% chance automation will take a job with an hourly wage above $40, a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) warned. The risk of having your job effectively taken over by a robot, CEA chairman Jason Furman told reporters on Monday, “varies enormously based on what your salary is.“ In other words, the more skilled, creative, and high-earning you are, less likely your job will be taken over by automatons.
Mechanical and assemblyline tasks, from laying bricks to making cars and even driving them, are already being taken over by drones, robots, and other “intelligent“ forms even as scientists are trying to infuse them with intuition and emotions, their memory and computing power long having surpassed that of human beings. Furman said the risk of many current jobs being performed by robots is another example of why it is important to invest in education that helps people have skills that complements automation.
Developments in US indust ry serve as a warning against over-reliance on low-grade, assembly-line manufacturing that can be replaced by robots.Even some of the low-level service jobs, such as dispensing food or gas or money , have been destroyed in the US with the ad vancement of automation -from ATMs to self-serve kiosks for photographs.
Manufacturing jobs have declined by more than 7.2 million, or 37%, since employment in manufacturing peaked in 1979. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US economy; by 1988 it only accounted for 39%, in 2014, it accounted for less than 9%.
Not all of the destruction is accounted for by flight of jobs to China or Mexico. Lurking in the background, technological advancement. University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47% of total US jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033. Even jobs in medicine, law, and education are not immune. Remarkably though, even as employment is shrinking, productivity is gro wing, thanks to the technological advancements. So, while the GDP is soaring, median income in many jobs is falling even as the job market itself is becoming smaller.
In the US, there's an 83% chance that automation will take a job with an hourly wage below $20, a 31% chance automation will take a job with an hourly wage between $20 and $40, and just a 4% chance automation will take a job with an hourly wage above $40, a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) warned. The risk of having your job effectively taken over by a robot, CEA chairman Jason Furman told reporters on Monday, “varies enormously based on what your salary is.“ In other words, the more skilled, creative, and high-earning you are, less likely your job will be taken over by automatons.
Mechanical and assemblyline tasks, from laying bricks to making cars and even driving them, are already being taken over by drones, robots, and other “intelligent“ forms even as scientists are trying to infuse them with intuition and emotions, their memory and computing power long having surpassed that of human beings. Furman said the risk of many current jobs being performed by robots is another example of why it is important to invest in education that helps people have skills that complements automation.
Developments in US indust ry serve as a warning against over-reliance on low-grade, assembly-line manufacturing that can be replaced by robots.Even some of the low-level service jobs, such as dispensing food or gas or money , have been destroyed in the US with the ad vancement of automation -from ATMs to self-serve kiosks for photographs.
Manufacturing jobs have declined by more than 7.2 million, or 37%, since employment in manufacturing peaked in 1979. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US economy; by 1988 it only accounted for 39%, in 2014, it accounted for less than 9%.
Not all of the destruction is accounted for by flight of jobs to China or Mexico. Lurking in the background, technological advancement. University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47% of total US jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033. Even jobs in medicine, law, and education are not immune. Remarkably though, even as employment is shrinking, productivity is gro wing, thanks to the technological advancements. So, while the GDP is soaring, median income in many jobs is falling even as the job market itself is becoming smaller.
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