Will We Be Replaced By Robots?

 Technological Unemployment  

Will you soon lose your job to a robot, or even an algorithm? Dr Carl Frey and Dr Michael Osborne's recent working paper, "The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?", found that nearly half of US jobs could be susceptible to technological unemployment over the next two decades.

Earlier this year, Dr Carl Frey, James Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology and Dr Michael Osborne, University Lecturer in Machine Learning, University of Oxford presented their research in the economics of technological unemployment at the university (video above).

Frey and Osborne's recent paper, "The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization?", concluded that nearly half of US jobs could be susceptible to computerization over the next two decades.

"Our findings thus imply that as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerization – i.e., tasks requiring creative and social intelligence."

Like Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, the pair found that more than just routing tasks are falling under the order of automation.  Algorithms for Big Data are more and more entering domains reliant upon pattern recognition and can readily substitute for labor in a wide range of non-routine cognitive tasks.  For instance, in the presentation, they discuss how Google's self-driving car is using Big Data to perform navigation and how the legal profession is becoming computerized at a great rate.

During the lecture, Frey and Osborne frequently cite The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market where authors Frank Levy and Richard Murnane show how computers are changing the employment landscape and how the right kinds of education can ease the transition to the new job market. The authors merge stories of working people with insights from cognitive science, computer science, and economics to show how computers are enhancing productivity in many jobs even as they eliminate other jobs--both directly and by sending work offshore. At greatest risk are jobs that can be expressed in programmable rules--blue collar, clerical, and similar work that requires moderate skills and used to pay middle-class wages.

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According to the authors, the loss of these jobs leaves a growing division between those who can and cannot earn a good living in the computerized economy. Left unchecked, the division threatens the nation's democratic institutions.

Frey and Osborne echo Levy and Murnane that the focus for the new economy has to be on jobs involving extensive problem solving and interpersonal communication, areas they feel are less susceptible to computerization. "Our findings thus imply that as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerization – i.e., tasks requiring creative and social intelligence," they conclude.

Also, Moravec's Paradox is mentioned in the discussion.  The paradox is the finding by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to common-sense assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensor and motor skills require enormous computational resources.

The principle was articulated by Hans Moravec, Rodney Brooks, Marvin Minsky and others in the 1980s. As Moravec wrote in Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence, "it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility."

In their paper, Frey and Osborne were surprised find that a substantial share of employment in service occupations are highly susceptible to computerization.  This is despite the fact that this sector is where most US job growth has occurred over the past decades. Additional support for this finding is provided by the recent growth in the market for service robots and the gradually fading of the comparative advantage of human labor in tasks involving mobility and dexterity as robotics improves.

What do you think, will improving social and creative skills be enough to counter the robotic revolution, or will more drastic measures be required?

Image Source: The Economist, Jan. 18, 2014

Will society find itself, in the not-to-distant future in a position where staggering innovation gains continue exponentially, but widen the income inequality even more?At the end of the lecture, Frey presents what he considers lessons from the past.  He cites the chart above which statistically hints that wages now might follow the trajectory they did during the industrial revolution in Britain.In another interesting historical examples of today's Detroit versus New York.  According to Frey, both cities were in the same dismal economic situation in the mid-Twentieth century, but they took dramatically different paths.  Detroit invested in infrastructure; while New York invested in people claims Frey and the outcomes speak for themselves.  He does mention that the effects in New York have a significant price in terms of economic inequality.  

SOURCE  21school

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