Have been thinking recently about an editorial in Barron’s back in September, called “The End of Labor?” by Thomas G. Donlan. I love Barron’s for the reporting on companies and investment advice, but typically don’t care for the editorials. The author delved into the idea of robotics and economic productivity eliminating jobs of humans. “We should ask how America’s displaced laborers will provide for themselves at the end of the age of labor.” Mr. Donlan laments.
I don’t share Mr. Donlan’s pessimism, but I do concur there is a problem. I have been interested in this subject since I was young, reading Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, and dreaming about the future. Working in the technology field, I have experienced it first hand, as technological advances have eliminated jobs.
Initially technology eliminated the jobs of the manual laborer, making humans more efficient and productive….machines doing the work that previously took many men to perform. Now, technology is no longer just replacing blue-collar jobs, it is even eliminating white-collar jobs. So where does this leave us humans?
As we have seen the last 30 years, manufacturing jobs have declined, and service jobs are what have replaced them. Two of the largest employers are Walmart and McDonald’s.
What happens when machines replace the service jobs?
I was at a Smoky Bones restaurant a few weeks ago, and they had a touch screen tablet on the table where we could order food and more drinks at the touch of a button. The only thing we needed the waitress for was to bring us our food. Many places now have buffets, where you get your own food, bypassing the waiter altogether. More and more self serve. Convenient? Often times yes, but that convenience replaces labor. How many times in the past year have you gone into your local bank branch?
Now, I don’t think humans are going to be useless. I do think we, as people, are going to be more important in terms of our ability to think, to reason. Our ability to reason will never be able to be replicated by a machine or computer (at least not in the near future).
Stephen Hawking may disagree with that statement. He is already on record fearing that the robots will eventually become as smart as humans and become self-aware, which will eventually destroy humanity.
I’m definitely not that much of a nihilist. However, education is going to be so very more important. Your brain, your ability to think and reason (why something is the way it is, and how to use it, NOT the ability to Google it on your smartphone), is what will become more and more important to humanity, and to employers.
