Gutierrez 1

Lily Gutierrez

Ms. Gardner

Honors English 10, Per. 5

2 May 2018

Out With the Old, In With the Robots

Today, 84% of enterprises believe investing in artificial intelligence will lead to greater

advantages, and 75% believe that it will open up new businesses, according to the ​Forbes ​article

“10 Charts That Will Change Your Perspective On Artificial Intelligence's Growth” (Columbus).

Yet as we dawn on a new age of technological advancement, are we truly ready to face the

unavoidable consequences? Job automation largely focuses on if employees should worry about

losing their job to artificial intelligence, or AI. This issue is especially topical in terms of the fast

growing AI industry, as seen by the above statistic, and the foreseeable unemployment rates once

more and more businesses acquire AI. Job automation is a serious issue that those in the

workforce should be heavily preparing for, as the rise of artificial intelligence only promises less

and less jobs heading into the future.

As it rises, job automation is predicted to stimulate the global economy heavily.

However, this stimulation contains unavoidable negative consequences, specifically for

underdeveloped economies. “In Africa, in particular, a burgeoning cohort of young people - 11

million entering the job market every year - is compounding the threat”, advances Brahima

Coulibaly, a writer for the international media organization Project Syndicate, “Without careful

policy planning, the continent's anticipated demographic windfall could turn out to be a ticking

time bomb” (Coulibaly). This spells doom not only for those in Africa, but other countries with
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slow developing economies, who are ultimately going to be unable to keep up with the growing

artificial intelligence industry. This involves the loss of some of the current advantages, like

offering abundant and low cost labor. Those countries are only the start. Once AI becomes more

and more accessible, do you really think high business proprietors aren’t going to seize the

opportunity to save thousands on their employees’ wages by leaving them in the dirt?

Furthermore, there’s reasonable suspicion every time a new wave of technology comes

rolling in. “In New York, the local of the "sandhogs" who dig subway tunnels negotiated a deal

where it gets $450,000 for each tunnel-digging machine used, to make up for job losses caused

by ‘technological advancement’”, relates Eduardo Porter, a journalist for the ​New York Times

(Porter). Additionally, the growing self-automated car, truck, and bus industry may propose an

easy, cost effective way of transportation, but uncontrollable consequences lie in its mist. Brett

Swanson and Michael Mandel, two editorial writers for the ​Wall Street Journal​, agree that

“Because robo-trucks won't have to pull over for naps or bathroom breaks, they'll be able to put

on many more miles. Thus, they will require many more highly trained mechanics, who on

average earn substantially more than truck drivers” (Swanson). Although, hypothetically

speaking, what happens if the truck breaks down in the middle of a backed up highway, and

there’s hundreds of angry, stressed employees trying to get to work? Or it could break down in

the middle of nowhere, where it may take hours to locate, perform maintenance, and get the

truck back on the road, not to mention the ruination of contents inside the truck. This leads to

consumers worrying for their own safety and the safety of their merchandise, eventually

boycotting those who enlist the use of self driving trucks, bringing the whole enterprise down. So

what’s the use of pushing out these first-model, potentially dangerous vehicles if you haven’t
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completely ensured they will not malfunction? Although manual truck drivers may not earn as

much as a maintenance man would, it is, in the long run, beneficial to all that there not be an

overnight switch to self driving trucks until there is complete trust, complete control.

Also differing from past movements, the AI uprising will wipe out jobs and​ not​ ​replace

them​, since there will be no need to, leading to a mass genocide of a broad range of occupations.

The A.I. revolution is not simply taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants who use paper

and typewriters, toothpaste cappers) and replacing them with other jobs, as it was before. Instead,

AI is poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs -- mostly lower-paying jobs, but

some higher-paying ones as well, claims a ​New York Times​ article entitled "The Real Threat of

Artificial Intelligence” (Kai-Fu) . Similarly, Lan Xinzhen, of ​The Beijing Review, ​stresses that,

having already gone through a machinery revolution, where “the wide use of automation

equipment in factories led to rounds of mass job cuts which were followed by labor protests and

social disturbances”, the world should be prepared for unemployment rates to drop yet again, as

“the ongoing fourth industrial revolution is expected to make an even heavier blow to

employment than the previous ones. Both white collar and blue collar workers' jobs are likely to

be grabbed by robots” (Xinzhen). This accumulates to the undeniable fact that there will be a

future severe job loss rate, which will occur in not only world he community, county, region or

state, but destruction on a ​global​ scale, applying to almost every job imaginable. Therefore the

world, though it may sound silly, should prepare for the incoming invasion of robots and AI

stealing jobs to help the rich get richer and the poor, now unemployed, get poorer, causing a

massive shift through the unequal balance of power.

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On the opposing side, it’s true this shift may not happen for a long time. In fact, Ruchir

Sharma of the ​New York Times​ acknowledges that “there is no evidence so far to support

forecasts of a nearly jobless future. If robots threatened human labor, human joblessness would

be growing. But it's not.”. Sharma goes on to explain that “since 2008, job growth has been

strongest in countries like Germany and Japan, which”, as it seems, “deploy the most robots”,

and that the pessimist's “basic” mistake is focusing too much on what is lost to competitive

businesses who manipulate advanced technology, and too little on what is gained through this

manipulation (Sharma). To summarize, there is no real cause for immediate alarm, and there

shouldn’t be so much light shed on cynicism. Rather, there should be clear focus on the

impressive advancements of the future. Indeed, many are certainly pro-AI, but just because one

is aware and excited for where humanity will go with robots, does not mean they shouldn’t be

aware of potentially losing their job to one

In conclusion, job automation is a serious issue that those in the workforce should be

preparing for, as the rise of artificial intelligence only promises less and less jobs heading into

the future. Even though some argue that more jobs will be produced with the growth of job

automation, and that the unemployment rates are actually rising as opposed to the forecasted

“jobless future”, the fact that this rise is ultimately unpredictable and will seriously affect the

world economy is irrefutable. Humanity needs to band together and stand up for what few jobs

robots will never be able to replace, and need to write to big authority figures to spread

awareness of how dire this situation can get. The robot revolution only seems to be getting

larger, certainly with unavoidable consequences, which the world should be readily informed and

prepared for.
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Works Cited

Columbus, Louis. “10 Charts That Will Change Your Perspective On Artificial Intelligence's

Growth.” ​Forbes​, Forbes Magazine, 19 Jan. 2018,

www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2018/01/12/10-charts-that-will-change-your-perspe

ctive-on-artificial-intelligences-growth/#5c87fbb24758.

Coulibaly, Brahima. "Africa's Race Against the Machines." ​Project Syndicate​, 16 Jun, 2017.

SIRS Issues Researcher​, ​https://sks.sirs.com​.

Kai-Fu, Lee. "The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence." ​New York Times​, 25 Jun, 2017, pp.

SR.4. ​SIRS Issues Researcher​, ​https://sks.sirs.com​.

Porter, Eduardo. "Is the Populist Revolt Over? Not if Robots have their Way." ​New York Times

(Online), 30 Jan, 2018. ​SIRS Issues Researcher​, ​https://sks.sirs.com​.

Sharma, Ruchir. "No, that Robot Will Not Steal Your Job." ​New York Times​, 08 Oct, 2017, pp.

SR.3. ​SIRS Issues Researcher​, ​https://sks.sirs.com

Swanson, Bret, and Michael Mandel. “Robots Will Save the Economy.” ​The Wall Street Journal​,

Dow Jones & Company, 14 May 2017,

www.wsj.com/articles/robots-will-save-the-economy-1494796013.

Xinzhen, Lan. “Risk of Unemployment in the AI Age.” Beijing Review, 1 Feb. 2018,

www.bjreview.com/Nation/201801/t20180129_800115653.html.