Will A Robot Take My Job?
This is kinda wild. “Will a robot take my job?” is one of the most googled questions. It kinda makes sense. You know, when phones were first invented, there was probably horse messengers freakin’ out all over the joint. Vinyl’s making a comeback, but fidelity aside, why bother, when you can have a curated playlist with thousands of songs right on your phone? Come to think of it, I can’t tell you the last time I shot a film… on film. See, change makes people panic, but things evolve regardless, so we accept it, we move on.
And now that we’re entering the so-called fourth industrial revolution, yeah, automation’s gonna replace some jobs, but it will also create new ones, and probably give rise to industries that never existed. That’s the topic some of these next folks are exploring, how machine learning is making things more productive, more efficient, safer, and cleaner.
Trucking
The trucking industry is at a crossroads. E-commerce is driving demand for shipping higher than ever, but the harsh realities of long-haul trucking are sending professional drivers looking for other work, leaving a 50,000-driver shortage in the U.S. alone. “There are of course some industries that will be impacted by A.I. in terms of labor workforce being diminished, but there are some industries that don’t have the workforce to sustain it, and so that disconnect, that’s where A.I. can fit in very nicely,” says Dr. Ayanna Howard.
The Port
Port of Long Beach is the second-busiest port in North America… and the first fully-automated container terminal in the United States. To most people, shipping and logistics aren’t that sexy, but to an A.I., it’s a dream. With over 14,000 people moving more than eight million giant containers around the world, this port handles about $200 billion worth of cargo a year. Automating this industry will make it more efficient, for sure, but also safer.
Cooking With Robots
Pizza and robots, very exciting concept. “I’ve been making pizza for 15 years. In my life, I’ve probably made two million pizzas… so coming to Zume was awesome, because it was like, wow, this is different than any other pizzeria.” So I got the idea for Zume about seven years ago when I realized that Big Pizza was built on one central conceit… which was that there wasn’t a better way to do it. I thought, “I wonder if there’s a better way to do it?”
The future of work is evolving. Automation’s making the workplace safer, greener, more efficient, for sure. If we can figure out how to integrate A.I. technologies, not to replace humans, but to augment their abilities, to make life more fun, to make us more productive and more creative… I think that’s where the power of the machine will come. Thousands of years ago, we were hunter-gatherers. Eventually, we became farmers, and now that we’re maybe entering this fourth industrial revolution, one that connects the physical, biological, and digital, it’s not just jobs that are being changed by A.I., but us. We are the progress. So why focus on the rear-view when we can look to the road ahead to see what we’re becoming?