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As the world continues to advance in technological development, the debate of machines coming to replace humans has become more heated with more and more industrial and processes becoming automated.
According to a Boston based Consulting Group, by 2025, up to a quarter of jobs will be replaced by either smart software or robots, while Oxford University has disclosed that 35% of existing UK jobs are presently at risk of full automation in the next 20 years.
See: See how restaurants are operating without human staff
For those who do repetitive jobs such as writing reports or drawing up spreadsheets, machines are presently programmed with software to replace such jobs. The following five jobs seem set for a complete loss to robotic operation:
1. Transportation
Taxi drivers in cities around the world are presently entangled in rows with Uber, the app-based, on-demand service whose drivers, they argue, are subject to less regulation than them. Uber in collaboration with major car manufacturers and Google are already looking beyond a rival service to one that gets rid of drivers altogether.
Travis Kalanick, Chief Executive Uber, said the service would be less expensive if you weren’t “paying for that other dude in the car.”
He noted that before the end of the year automated taxi pods will start running on the streets of England’s Milton Keynes, offering rides around the town. Presently, the UK government is updating the Highway Code to take account of driverless cars.
2. Factory Workers
In the East, China is already building robots that will ultimately take their jobs; the first robot-only factory is being built in a Dongguan factory city.
Sehnzhen Evenwin, Precision Technology, owner of the factory, said the innovation is aimed at reducing the current workforce of 1,800 by 90%.
Since last year September a total of 505 factories across Dongguan have invested 4.2bn yuan (£430m) in robots, aiming to replace more than 30,000 workers, Dongguan Economy and Information Technology Bureau stated.
Foxconn, maker of electronic devices such as Apple’s iPhone, is also planning a robot army although its ambitions are slightly more modest aiming for a 30% robot workforce in the next five years.
3. Journalism
According to Kristian Hammond, a Narrative Science Chief Scientist, in 15 years’ time, 90% of news will be written by machines but, he told the BBC, that didn’t mean that 90% of journalist jobs would go.
“It means that the journalists can extend their reach. The world of news will expand,” he said.
“The journalists will not be generating stories from data. That unambiguous, not-open-to-interpretation stuff will be done by machines.”
4. Medicine
Already IBM’s supercomputer Watson is collaborating with a dozen hospitals in the US, offering advice on the best treatments for a range of cancers using vision software developed by the firm, it is also helping to spot early-stage skin cancers.
Robots for some years have been helping doctors perform surgery at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, for example, robots assist doctors with keyhole kidney surgery.
Speed is a crucial factor in the success of such operations, robots have been proven to be faster in sewing blood vessels and connecting donor kidneys than humans.
“Doctors in particular aren’t likely to graciously cede control of their patients’ treatment to synthetic intellects,” writes Jerry Kaplan in his book Humans Need Not Apply.
“But eventually, when outcomes demonstrate that this is the better option, patients will demand to see the attentive robot, not the overworked doctor, for a fraction of the fee.”
5. Cocktail Waiters
Drinks and food can be ordered using a tablet device and users aren’t limited to a set menu.
The robotic arm mixes the cocktail and pours it into a plastic to avoid breakages glass; its pouring skills aren’t always precise.
Although the robotic concoctions did not actually taste that good – they lacked the fine-tuning, like the fresh twist of lemon that the human bartender added.
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