Automation will create new opportunities, not reduce them

In the years of transition between the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, the steam engine invented by James Watt in 1781 laid the foundation for major transformative change across many industries – especially textiles. Artisans and workers of the textile industry at the time found the machines being used to manufacture textiles to be a threat to their livelihood and income. A group of workers in the early 19th century feared that the time they had spent in understanding and learning the skills of their respective crafts would go to waste as machines would replace them and render them jobless.

Referred to as Luddites, they began a campaign to break weaving machinery; and their name has descended through history as a name given to anyone who acts to hold back technological change.

The steam engine was instrumental in creating the industrial revolution and creating the ecosystem that is responsible for most global mass manufacturing today. The industrial revolution also created the middle class, took power away from feudal lords, and made the world a more equal and prosperous place.

The creation of an intellectual, creative, and prosperous intellegentsia no longer beholden to the nobility and propertied class was also instrumental in taking the learnings and knowledge from the renaissance to a much larger section of the populace. People had to be more educated to work on machinery, so there was a greater focus on education; transportation for manufactured goods had to improve, and so transport systems like roads and railways were created. For each weaver and

Luddite that automation through steam engines replaced, several more individuals were hired to manage these machines. Today, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence and the impending automation it will bring, naysayers and doomsdayers can be equated to Luddites; and just like the Luddites they need to realise that automation in technology will create more engaging, creative, and interesting jobs in the future.

Automation technology has its roots in the industrial revolution, but has come a very long way since then. Advances in AI like neural networks and Machine Learning have caused the capabilities of these systems to leapfrog ahead of current capacities. Automation can help create efficient, error- free, fatigue-free workforces that can handle an increasing level of complexity.

IBM’s Watson can diagnose radiological images on average better than human radiologists; a group of Stanford researchers have also created an AI system that can diagnose tuberclosis from X-rays better than its human counterparts. This doesn’t mean that radiologists will go out of business; instead, it means that they will find other ways to utilize their considerable skills and experience, doing higher-level diagnoses and work. Further, these AI systems will create thousands of jobs in the healthcare sector for proficient programmers, as companies looking to utilize these technologies will need individuals to create, operate, and manage these systems.

Like the steam engine, automation will replace only the repetitive and mundane work that humans do – the kind of work human beings were never supposed to do in the first place. These technologies will create the fundamental drive in human society to fashion a new, better educated, technically adept, and creative workforce that will be expected to spend their time and effort in undertaking complex tasks.

People will continue to be more adaptable than automatons and AI software, and will still be gainfully employed at companies. At the simplest level, there will be a collosal demand for people to customize AI technologies, neural networks, and Machine Learning algorithms to different applications in various industries. Many people with experience in particular fields will be required to use their experience to facilitate automation adoption in their respective areas of expertise in the medium and short term.

In the long term, automation will have a more fundamental impact upon the job market. As most of the menial and labor-based tasks that humans perform will be undertaken by it, it is likely to create a more innovative and intellect-based economy. Humans will no longer have to sell their physical effort to be productive, and this will create more equalities and opportunities by removing the conventional boundaries that exist today at the workplace. New fields of human endeavour would become accessible as new technologies come to the fore, like car automation, drone technology, Deep learning and so on.

Essentially, automation shall free us from the kind of humdrum labor human society engages in just to keep things running. It will enable our human workforce to undertake higher forms of work that would genuinely celebrate the human intellect. The upcoming automation revolution shall open the doors to a new era of more meaningful and gainful employment for all. Those wishing to take advantage of this upcoming change should move swiftly to gain expertise in AI-related programming and its applications. This will put them in the ideal position to be at the forefront of the new paradigm in the market and industry, while providing them more interesting employment.

— Ishan Gupta, MD India, Udacity