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Will robots replace human workers?

Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to permeate our daily lives by 2025. This could have huge implications on several business sectors, most notably health care, customer service, and logistics. Already, AI is responsible for medical research breakthroughs and climate research, not to mention self-driving cars.

Will robots replace human workers?

The answer to that seems to be divided. According to PEW research, about half (48%) of experts surveyed felt that robots and digital agents will displace a significant number of blue- and white-collar jobs. Their concern is that this will increase income inequality and create a mass of virtually unemployable people. The other half (52%) expect robotics and AI to create more jobs than they take. This latter half believes that while AI will replace humans, these experts have faith in human ingenuity to create new jobs, industries, and new ways of making a living much like at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Of interest in the PEW study, both groups are concerned that our educational institutions are not adequately preparing people for the job market of tomorrow.

What is artificial intelligence?

AI in its simplest form stands for artificial intelligence designed to mimic human intelligence to perform tasks. Advocates of AI see this as a positive step forward. It will make it easier for businesses to identify and rectify problems. AI will potentially improve recruitment, cybersecurity, marketing, and standard operating processes.

AI can process large amounts of data and execute complex algorithms quickly and accurately. Each year, AI is getting "smarter" and increasing business efficiency.

What will it be like to work with robots?

Leading expert Martina Mara, Professor of Robopsychology at Johannes Kepler University Linz, suggests we ask a different question: What do we want the future of work to look like? How do we want robots to change our lives? She reminds us that robots are developed by people. While robots can work 24/7, they cannot generalize or contextualize. They have no soft skills.

They're hard wired, literally, to perform highly specific and clearly structured tasks. This is great news for humans we get to pass off the mundane repetitive tasks and adopt those that require critical thinking and problem solving based on human intuition.

AI is evolving and technology is having an increasingly bigger role, but it will complement and augment most jobs, not replace them. In a study involving 1500 companies, researchers found that the most significant performance improvements occurred when humans and machines worked together. Humans perform three crucial roles: they train machines what to do, explain outcomes especially when those are counterintuitive or controversial, and they sustain responsible use of machines. Robots need us just as much as we need them.

Robots are used to do the heavy lifting, literally. In manufacturing, cobots, context-aware robots, perform repetitive actions dominated by heavy lifting, while their human coworker completes complementary tasks that require more dexterity and judgment.

Whether you are pro-bot or anti-bot, you may not have a choice. Rosie the Robot who worked for the Jetsons is probably still far away, but we already have robots that will vacuum our floors and AI has been used in the customer service industry for years.

We need to begin to look at how we can improve technology-related skills while at the same time promoting characteristically human skills. Creativity, intuition, initiative, and critical thinking are human skills that will not likely translate to robots at least not soon. We should already be thinking of how we as employers and employees can harness robots to augment the work we do.

If not already, it won't be long before your next coworker is a robot.

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The Rise Of Artificial Intelligence: Will Robots Actually Replace People? - Forbes