Robots have lived side by side with humans at work for many years. For instance, they have long been the most accurate and trustworthy painters and welders in the automotive business. Automation has traditionally been most effective when a person is stationary and performing the same task repeatedly.
However, as artificial intelligence advances, robots are beginning to comprehend increasingly sophisticated, nuanced activities. Additionally, they are getting better at navigating both indoors and outside. In agriculture, robots can now identify weeds and laser-zap them in addition to plowing fields. Robots are used in hospitals for a variety of tasks, from bringing nurses supplies to assisting surgeons with more accurate tool placement.
In the next five years, 85 million jobs will be lost worldwide due to robots and automation, according to a 2020 World Economic Forum research. However, it also stated that the technologies will result in 97 million new jobs, most of which would require higher levels of education and ability.
Yes, that is indeed causing a great deal of very human fear. According to a Morning Consult study from 2021, 48% of Americans worry that automation would lead to fewer employees. Adults without a college degree and those making less than $50,000 a year were more likely to express this anxiety.
A professor at the University of Michigan Robotics Institute, Lionel P. Robert Jr., asserts that “the people who have skills, who have the training, they can get a job.” “When those positions go, the folks at the bottom simply have fewer opportunities to find another employment,”
Everyone is aware of the immense pressure the supply chain is under due to an increase in consumer expenditure. As the pandemic lockdowns began, e-commerce boomed and has since continued to expand quickly (up 14.2% from 2020 to 2021). Demand is boosting the use of already sophisticated robots, and no industry has a better chance of becoming automated than two specific ones: warehousing and transportation.
THE AUTOMATIC WAREHOUSE
According to Matthew Johnson-Roberson, head of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, “moving pallets around, moving forklifts around, and moving boxes around in fulfillment centers— that’s an area where we’ve seen just massive robotic explosion.” Amazon has a house-owned robotics business to advance the technology. Additionally, a rising number of businesses are providing automation services to the rest of the sector, like Berkshire Grey, Covariant, Dexterity, and One Robotics.
Consider the “put wall,” which is a row of cubbies that employees rush to fill with client orders. A robotic put wall is now available from Berkshire Grey, which mechanically fills the cubbies and moves the finished orders to the shipping area. According to the corporation, it can manage the same number of orders with only one-third as many personnel.
And as robot AI advances in its capacity to recognize and handle a wider range of parcels, the place of humans will continue to decline. There is a robotics sector where hundreds of robots genuinely cooperate. Sri Solur, chief product officer of Berkshire Grey, which counts Walmart, Target, and FedEx among its clients, claims that there are no people at all. People only come into play when a system malfunctions, such as a conveyor belt that is jammed.
However, as the warehouse industry continues to expand, the workload now exceeds what the equipment can manage. The U.S. notwithstanding automation The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 7% increase in warehouse employment between 2020 and 2030. And in order to recruit and keep staff for these demanding occupations, warehouses are increasing salaries and introducing benefits.
ROBO TRUCKERS
The journey transporting goods to and from warehouses is long, and truckers’ jobs are arduous. Highway driving’s monotony is one of the drawbacks of the profession, but once again, such mundane tasks are ideal for automation. A number of well-funded businesses are testing autonomous driving technologies, including Aurora, Plus, TuSimple, and Google subsidiary Waymo.
Some businesses have suggested automating the highway portion of long-haul transportation first while leaving human drivers in charge of the more challenging city navigation. However, Aurora, which works with Werner, FedEx, and Uber Freight, claims that it will be able to fully automate the journey by the end of 2023. According to Chris Urmson, the CEO of Aurora and the former project manager for Google’s self-driving vehicle program, “we believe you have to really conduct driving that is helpful.” “And that means that it has to start and  end somewhere.”
According to a 2020 Cornell University research, if automation completely takes over the transportation business, it may eventually displace up to 400,000 employees. Will those positions be missed, though? It’s challenging to find individuals to take them even now. According to the American Trucking Association, there will be roughly 80,000 open driver positions in the United States in 2021.
WORK WILL BE LESS COMMON SOMEDAY
Today’s economic, demographic, and cultural forces are working together to drive demand for labor-saving robotics, while also enabling radically smarter machines thanks to the development of AI technology. Always starting with the easiest jobs, robots. However, as technology develops, more and more jobs are fitting that description, even those that call for a considerable bit of human skill and discretion.
But none of this will occur in the following year or two. The present and upcoming generations of employees will have time to develop more sophisticated skills that go beyond what machines can perform during the 5, 10, or more years it takes for robots to catch up in capacity and numbers. And with those talents, they could find occupations that paid more and were more fulfilling. Machines could just take over jobs that people no longer wish to do, as opposed to people losing their jobs to them.
