The Robots We Were Afraid of Are Already Here

Automation is less intimidating than artificial intelligence and I wonder if it’s because it can still ultimately be controlled by humans.

We have robots at my work that have not replaced humans - but instead require one whole extra human to be present in order to correctly mount the robot into place for it to perform its job. The robot is incredibly precise but ridiculously slow. I perceived the robot to be absolutely without a doubt, the dumbest and weakest link in our team - except for the fact that it’s precision is so great - there are long term advantages to using it that cannot be overlooked. I’m not worried too much about job displacement due to robots (because the robots I see in use which in some cases have replaced a human in a particular role often require a human to be in a different part of the workflow ie, a human to mount the robot).

The thing I notice though, is that a lot of robots we use in my work, and certainly other automated things (like self-checkouts) don’t have that humanoid robot look that I think people expect robots to look like - so sometimes I feel like we don’t notice they’re really there - our robots at work are just other pieces of equipment - they don’t have arms and legs or when they do have an arm - it doesn’t look like a human arm.

Robots, automation etc - to me is not something to be afraid of in fact I think automation will lead to new jobs, more people are going to want to be computer scientists, engineers etc in future because that’s where the jobs will be, if you’re hoping to quit school young and just be a factory worker, you’ll be shit out of luck I suspect.