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  • Author Author: Catwell
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Are machines really taking our jobs? Tech analysts weigh in.

Catwell

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Are you really in danger of being replaced by a machine?

 

First, my opinion. Yes... more jobs will be automated. But, they'll need more engineers to design and maintain it all.

 

We use technology on a daily basis from our smartphones to computers, so it’s no surprise to still hear the old “humans will be replaced by machines” argument. It’s something Hollywood continues to thrive on. While most of us are quick to dismiss the notion, there are some analysts in the field who think it’s already happening. George Zarakadis, a digital lead at Willis Towers Watson, shared his fears that machines are slowly eliminating entry level jobs at the AI Summit in London earlier this year.

 

As if making it through college and dealing with student loans for the rest of your life wasn’t hard enough, machines are taking the jobs graduates depend on. According to Zarkadakis, machine learning and other systems won’t get rid of all jobs, just those pesky entry level ones. He believes machines will eliminate the need for smaller tasks people usually take up when entering the job market. He turns to a study by consultants McKinsey, which showed under one third of tasks that make up 60 percent of jobs on the market will be automated.

 

So what are all those graduates supposed to do if jobs aren’t ready for them? Zarakadis believes it will cause a disruption in the job market, which is already happening thanks to “gig economy.” This is when employers hire people on a contract basis to take on small tasks on an as needed basis, like internships. There’s no full time commitment and no guarantees of long term employment. More and more companies are shrinking the number of full time employees and replacing them with automated systems. When thinking about the current job market, the idea of machines taking away employment opportunities doesn’t seem that farfetched anymore.

 

But as with any theory, there are two sides and not everyone is ready to believe jobs are in danger. Dave Coplin, Microsoft’s chief envisioning officer, is tired of this worn out cliché. Rather he believes technology is meant to help us in our jobs, not replace us. Just think about your own job and how technology makes it smoother, maybe even easier, on a daily basis. Companies are constantly looking to automated systems for both financial and efficiency reasons. Even if we do begin to see more machines in the work place it’ll take place over a long period of time, not in quick succession as people tend to fear. Plus, machines aren’t perfect. If they were, Windows wouldn’t need so many updates.

 

Harrick Vin, chief scientist at Tata Consultancy Services, points out how there are still lots of hiccups to training machine learning systems. These issues have to be solved before they can fully replace manual labor. And with the ever changing field of technology, they may never be fully fixed. Currently, it take from six to 18 months to train machines for various domains. So you probably don’t have to worry about being replaced by machines just yet.

 

Have a story tip? Message me at: cabe(at)element14(dot)com

http://twitter.com/Cabe_Atwell

Parents

  • The premise of this story and the question posed in its title is a red herring. It side steps the real issue of the growth of automation technology and how the nature of work has changed. This kind of story is not new. I recall when I was younger having to read Alvin Toffler's "FutureShock" for a class writing assignment. By its very nature, the work was unnecessarily alarmist, as is the category of literature that bemoans technology. The wonders that technology offers humankind are the 8th Wonder of the World. There have been NO loss of jobs; rather, it is the type of jobs that have been created by the growth of technology is what has altered how we work. Human beings are increasingly not doing the actual work; rather, they are supervising the machines that perform the work. In turn, unskilled, brawn-type of jobs are being replaced by STEM-trained jobs. If there has been any failure at a high level (public policy makers), it is the lack of stress on the importance of training or re-training. There should be no road blocks to getting advanced education. All education should be totally free! It is terribly ridiculous that a new graduate is weighted down with $40,000 in debt. I have pondered my own life, which has taken a lot of twists and turns, both personally and career-wise. But I do recall what inspired me to work hard at learning mathematics (which initially didn't come to be naturally) was the Apollo space program and my being in Houston the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. To be an astronaut, I had to know math and science.  So I worked at understanding mathematics and functions y = f(x); once I learned the beauty of match, everything fell in place. If people believe that machines and technology are taking their jobs, they are out of touch with reality.

  • in reply to rscasny

    Here in the UK the writing was on the wall that fees would prevent children from poorer families from applying to universities. Just the thought that more than £10k per year is effectively required (even if the bulk of it can be paid later) would put people off. And just as predicted, this has happened.

    The Government is making it harder for poor students to get a good degree | The Independent

    Also:

    Number of poor students attending UK's leading universities falls despite millions spent to encourage them to apply | Th…

    According to that second report, "pupils from private schools are still two and a half times more likely to enter a leading university than their state school colleagues".

    I was lucky, education was free when I studied, but successive governments have taken so many steps backwards since then with respect to education.

     

    Not only that, but once they've got their education, add in the possible prejudices of some employers - according to an article today:

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/engineerings-stark-racial-inequalities-revealed-by-report

    - if one is from a minority ethicity then you're two times less likely to find an engineering job within 6 months of completing an engineering degree.

    And if people raise this as a concern, or the fact that if you're born a certain sex you're likely to earn more on average, the response from some of the public is this,

    check out the top few responses sorted by highest-rated, in the comments section:

    Computing GCSE 'leaves girls and poorer students behind' - BBC News

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  • in reply to shabaz

    Shabaz,

     

    I thought this problem was only in the US:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/poor-students-good-degree-social-mobility-higher-education-white-paper-a7033821.html

    But the US the problem discussed in this article is occurring at the primary and high school level. We have charter schools and generally the affulent get in them and get better education. The public schools are not as good. In my neighborhood in Chicago a new French School opened up. I believe it's up to 12th grade but I hear it costs $12,000 Us to go effectively eliminating even the lower middle class.

     

    This situation exacerbates the problem of employment:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/number-of-poor-students-attending-uks-leading-universities-falls-despite-millions-spent-to-encourage-a6879771.html

    We are dooming our nations to having high employment that the employed support through various social programs. I went to dinner last night and one of the people mentioned that their daughter was part way through a nursing program but needed $18,000 US to enroll in the next year. The family didn't have the funds. If we are going to be a thriving technological society, we have to give people the tools to function in that kind of society. How can we not?

     

    Unfortunately, this appears to be true for both our nations:

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/26/engineerings-stark-racial-inequalities-revealed-by-report

    Women have made some gains in engineering in the US (though they are tragically paid less) yet ethnic minorities are a small percentage of all engineers. What inspires one to be an engineer.   talked about it in his article, How Were You 'Bit by the Bug' of Engineering & Technology? . But there must be role models. I had them.  So, if a child's environment doesn't have engineers, how can we as a society expect that child to turn into one opr purse that career or even spend the time in learning math. After all, if you can't do math, you won't get a high paying job.

  • in reply to rscasny

    Hi Randall,

     

    That's incredible, we hear there is a nursing shortage and yet people are charged $18k per year to become a nurse..

    It is fairly clear, across many professions, there are significant differences in education depending on personal/family wealth, and governments have done little.

    And even after education as can be seen there are significant prejudices at play affecting whether one will get a job or not.

     

    There was another engineering related employment article in the UK today, about someone who was female and from an ethnic minority. I think we should document interesting articles here as we see them, their cases deserve any extra visibility.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/27/ethnicity-engineering-black-minority-ethnic

    This is the article that is referred to, which summarizes some Royal Academy of Engineering report. I don't know what the stats for the US are, but I think (I hope) they are better than this, it surely

    couldn't get worse.

    https://www.newcivilengineer.com/engineering-equality/engineering-is-still-a-staggeringly-male-white-industry/10007140.a…

    <snippet>:

    image

  • in reply to shabaz

    The topic of females in Engineering comes up during our school visits for Futureintech. Project X: Hands-on electronics in schools

     

    The schools are generally very good at keeping the mix as even as possible.

    We visited our local school early in the year and had 8 boys, so we visited at the end of the year and had 12 girls.

     

    In nearly every case the females are more engaged and are often better at coding than the boys, but there does tend to be the maturity aspect creeping in, which skews it a little.

    Sadly I'm not sure this experience for the girls translates into careers in either Engineering or software.

     

    We have a quite a few female software programmers at work, and in one area, the females outnumbered the males.

    It could be that our recruiting has ended up with a better mix, but I don't have the stats to decide how widespread it is.

     

     

    I do recall one conversation where we asked ourselves why there weren't more females in Engineering.

    If I recall some of the thoughts were that the mother may have a big influence on their decision.

    Without the mothers support it would take a fairly strong willed girl to choose engineering, and that's with or without the fathers career being an influence.

     

    The comment that boys always seem more hands on than the girls may be another factor. You could compare this to mechanics. How many female mechanics do you see.?

    There is no reason that they aren't just as capable, it's simply whether they choose that career.

     

    My daughter has no interest in Engineering despite being quite capable and extremely computer literate.

    I'm there to support her decisions rather than try to steer her where I think she should go.

    Her passion is art (she's clever enough to know there is no money in that) and Japanese, which she is intending to start her career in next year.

     

    Here in NZ your upbringing will have a huge effect on the decisions you make. Certain cultures place different values on life and therefore good marks in education may not be the top of their list.

    Once you get to the next generation, and have no other role models, then you've lost the ability to relate why a good education is worthwhile.

     

    Some of the less acedamic jobs earn high wages, with no student debt or study required, so why would you bother. It was good enough for Dad, uncle, couzin or brother so what makes you so special.

     

     

    Sadly education is not free, and it will always impact those at the lower end of the scale.

    I do know those that have a difficult path will be more focussed than those that had the easy path, so in the end they may be the better engineer.

     

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    I came across a nice article and I thought we might find it interesting, it explains the origin and the reasons for the 'We Can Do It" poster, and really how the female population were manipulated to work in certain roles and then to leave them:

    The Complex Legacy of Rosie the Riveter - The Atlantic

    I think it's very true what the author says that many questions are today still unanswered and that the answers will be complex.

    Anyway, it's worth a read.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Nice read.

    Not sure if the 'used' bit applies to modern woman, but it's interesting to see that the lack of woman in certain occupations is similar in other countries.

     

    I heard of Rosie the Riveter since Bryce takes photos of the car befor they get shipped out at the National Museum in San Fransisco.

    image

     

    Mark

Comment
  • in reply to shabaz

    Nice read.

    Not sure if the 'used' bit applies to modern woman, but it's interesting to see that the lack of woman in certain occupations is similar in other countries.

     

    I heard of Rosie the Riveter since Bryce takes photos of the car befor they get shipped out at the National Museum in San Fransisco.

    image

     

    Mark

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