A Glimpse of the Future

My mid-week post for the past two weeks has addressed a disruptive technology of major importance in the current global job situation: automation for greater productivity.

Robots and automated processes have already moved well beyond doing only what robotics expert Ryan Calo called “the three D’s: dangerous, dirty, and dull.” 

Last Wednesday I examined some of the ways robots and automation are replacing some types of traditionally minimum-wage or low-wage jobs, sometimes in appropriate ways, but other times in what some (including me) might consider needless, or less reasonable, ways.

Today I’d like to move up the social ladder a bit, because it’s not only blue-collar jobs that proponents of automation or robotics are proposing to pre-empt.

According to the research I’ve done for this series, doctors, nurses, lawyers, financial advisors, writers, teachers, and child-care workers are also in the cross-hairs. At this rate, nobody can afford to get too smug. If professions requiring higher-level thinking and analysis are in danger from automation, NO job is safe.

Is that actually a real threat, though? Won’t there be at some point an “uncanny valley” effect? The uncanny valley is a problem in both animation and robotics. If you make something look or act extremely realistic–but just short of indistinguishable from the real thing–people react with revulsion. It strikes them as creepy.

The Uncanny Valley can be a scary place!

Could the uncanny valley save white-collar jobs? Well, maybe. The verdict is still out. There’s evidence that once people become accustomed to the almost-real look, they find it less repulsive. In other words, don’t count on it.

The end result SHOULD lie in whether the automation actually does a more satisfactory job than a competent human could. Meanwhile, this is a great source of thought experiments for science fiction writers, futurists, technological ethicists, and many others.

I’ve gotta say though, I find it interesting I haven’t yet seen any proposals that AIs should take over research chairs in the field of robotics research.

But think about it. Once we’ve reached the singularity, is there any career they’d find more interesting?

I’d bet not.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Before it’s News for the “looking to the future” graphic, and to G Financial Services Marketing for the “ranks of white-collar robots” illustration. I’m grateful to PandaStrike for the illustrated Uncanny Valley graph, and to HR Zone for the robot photo.