Are Robots Coming to Steal your Job? Or make your Life Easier?

The answer is both. With the advent of advanced robotic technology, the face of human society is going to change one of these days: some of our cars are already driving themselves as it is. And many of the people concerned about being replaced by robots have every reason to be.

Profit is always the bottom line for a company. When robots become advanced enough, it will probably be cheaper to build one and maintain it than to pay a human worker every month for ten years or longer. Companies will inevitably lay off more and more of their human workers as it becomes cheaper and cheaper to purchase automated labor, and some jobs will no doubt become obsolete when this day in society comes.

And yet, it’s not all bad. Like all technologies, robots will have both positive and negative effects on society. While some jobs are rendered obsolete, others will be created, and not all of them will require you to be the one building or programming said robots with a college degree. ‘Smart’ robots capable of learning will have to be taught how to behave and respond to certain situations, and a real physical person will likely have to do the teaching.

Admittedly, the very idea of ‘learning’ robots carries some troubling implications, but even if we stick to mindless automation, robots could have a very positive effect on society. As companies lose less money in paying employees, the price of their products will likely also become more affordable, since making a profit will be an easier task. Robots will likely be able to carry out many menial tasks, such as fast food and taxi-driving, with greater efficiency than humans can, allowing us to go about our daily lives more quickly and easily. Robots may be able to guard or clean your home, perform menial tasks and chores you hate, or even take on dangerous roles like disaster response and warfare. In fact, some robots already do these things.

The real question is not whether or not robots will start replacing human labor, because the reality is that they will, with no exception. Companies will not continue to hire human labor when purchasing a more efficient machine is cheaper, and tens of thousands, if not millions of people will lose their jobs.

No, the question is how society as a whole will change in response to such a drastic shift in labor and production. Will products grow cheaper as the cost of producing them drops? Will the government actively try to make new jobs for displaced workers, or pass legislation preventing certain fields from being automated? Will the price of attending college change as the need for more educated workers increases as the demand for blue collar workers decreases?

Unfortunately, there’s no way to predict the impact that robots will have on modern society. We can theorize about their impact, but one way or another no one will know for certain how drastic the shift will be. Could the advent of working robots one day create the science fiction utopia in which no one has to work? Probably not, and certainly not in the next few decades, but before the century is out, there’s no telling what could happen.

Of course, even if we can’t know what will happen, it might be prudent to prepare for the dawn of our robot overlords, the day they realize that we humans really are obsolete.

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