The prospect of robots doing our job has been thrown around multiple times throughout history, and it has ranged from quite optimistic to almost apocalyptic. If you were to take a look at articles from the 50s, everyone was quite excited about robots taking over the most difficult jobs, leaving people to do nothing but enjoy their lives.
Then came the doom-and-gloom version of robot future, in which humans can’t get a job, or they are reduced to slaves thanks to artificial intelligence, which has been immortalized in movies such as The Matrix or the Terminator franchise.
Needless to say, both versions of the future have missed the mark by a wide margin. Yes, we live in a technology-oriented world, and robots have become an integral part of our lives, but the results aren’t quite as dramatic.
According to the report put together by McKinsey Global Institute, by 2030, as much as 350 millions could disappear. Sound pretty bad, right? At first glance, yes, but there is a flip side to that coin, which is the idea behind this article.
Keep on reading to find out why our fear of robots taking over our jobs is largely unfounded.
Technology Doesn’t Just Take Jobs, It Creates Them as Well
The fact of the matter is that robots cannot do most jobs, even though they might take some of ours. It seems like technology is always just one step, one small technological advancement away from taking over completely, which is a fear that has largely been dispelled.
Because all of those predictions fail to take into account one thing: technology also creates new jobs, and plenty of them at that.
Just 60 years ago, it was almost impossible to predict that some jobs and professions would appear, such as developers, nanosystem engineers, virtual assistants, QA engineers, or SEO experts.
So, while robots and technology may eliminated some jobs, they will eventually open up opportunities for new ones, it’s just hard to predict which ones from our place in time.
For instance, places like My Assignment Help, which provide struggling students with writing and editing services, are an example which proves that some jobs are irreplaceable and created by technology at the same time.
They are able to reach a global audience, which is something that wouldn’t have been possible 30 years ago. On the other hand, while there are some great grammar-checking tools out there, they are no match for expert writing of an actual human writer and/editor.
There Are Jobs That Are Relatively Safe
Another approach to alleviating the fear of losing your job in the future would be to choose a career which requires you to have a skillset which is still too complex for robots to have.
There was a study done at the University of Houston involving 346,660 people, which took into account people’s character traits, their interests during adolescence, their intelligence, as well as their social and economic status.
The purpose of the study was not only to determine which personality types chose which jobs, but also to identify those careers which would be impacted by robots the least.
The results showed that people which have great social skills, along with intelligence and an interest in arts and sciences since adolescence, were most likely to pursue careers which would not be under a direct threat from robots.
In other words, people are still pretty safe when it comes to jobs which require not only complex social interaction, but also a high degree of creativity.
So while robots may be better at jobs which require speed in combination with routine, they are still way behind humans in terms of thinking and flexibility. It is fair to assume that the best essay writing service 20 years from now is still going to be run by human writers, not AI or robots.
Don’t Let Robots Create Your Future for You
While there are jobs which are safe for now, there are those which will be in jeopardy in the very near future. For instance, if your job involves a high degree of repeatability or routine, such as working on factory lines, reporting, doing calculations, or performing menial tasks, you should be concerned about your future.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you should panic, but rather take your fate into your own hands and start adopting new knowledge and skills that will make you irreplaceable, and preferably those which are different than or complementary to jobs performed by machines.
Focus on developing your soft skills, such as communication, good social interactions, creative thinking, and as well as skills like coding or testing, which will require you to work together with machines or teach them.
For instance, according to bestessayservicereviews, a lot of writing services are making use of technology such as Ai or machine learning in order to build chatbots, and take their customer service to another level.
How to Prepare for the Future
Apart from choosing specific careers, you need to start developing a new mindset which will help you identify those opportunities which are less likely to be influenced by robot technology.
For starters, and we have already touched on this, you should think like a human being and not a robot, which means you should strive to be more creative, invest stuff, and challenge yourself both socially and intellectually, and not focus on jobs which are safe and repetitive.
Also, while you may be highly replaceable as an employee, as an entrepreneur with your own ideas and the ability to jump on business opportunities early on, you may find that you are much more valuable.
And seeing as technology is disrupting businesses every day, you may even be able to make it work in your favor. Companies such as Netflix, Amazon, and Uber are great examples of such entrepreneurial way of thinking.
Conclusion
While the world run solely by robots may seem like a scary idea, it is nothing more than a mere fantasy, as it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to replace us fully. Perhaps we are just now realizing that we are more complex than we give ourselves credit for.
About the Author:
Justin is a marketing specialist and blogger from Leicester, UK. When not working and rooting for Leicester FC, he likes to discuss new trends in digital marketing and share his own ideas with readers on different blogs and forums. Currently, he is working as a content marketer at best essay writers. You could follow Justin on Facebook and Twitter.
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