OPINION:
Job displacement is a nagging threat to the American worker as companies flee to locations overseas to save on labor, taxes and other costs. But more fearsome still is a competitor that rolls off another assembly line: the smart robot and its sidekick, the artificially intelligent computer. When a robot chef can prepare 360 hamburgers an hour — from grilling the beef to order, to slicing tomatoes and onions and delivering the order on a toasted bun — the workplace battle between man and machine is on. The Automat returns. The promise of a secure job in a wide-awake American dream may never be the same.
A survey by the Pew Research Center finds that two-thirds of Americans polled believe that within 50 years robots and computers will perform many of the jobs now done by humans. Their fears are well-founded. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that 5 million jobs will be turned over to robots during the next several years. Workers in large corporations, where the impersonal is valued, are most vulnerable to competition from machines, and 63 percent of those surveyed express concern. Only 53 percent of those working in government, education or nonprofit enterprises are worried about their jobs, affirming Ronald Reagan’s quip that a job in the government bureaucracy is the nearest thing on earth to eternal life.
Curiously, 80 percent think their own jobs will not be substantially changed as a result of the automation transformation. Sometimes the line between self-esteem and self-delusion is a thin one. Younger people, those between 18 and 29, are slightly more confident than those 50 or older in their ability to meet the challenge of machines over the next 50 years. Life experience could explain the difference of opinion: For seasoned employees, job displacement has not been an abstraction, but a real part of their world.
The rise of the machines defies prediction. A Google computer recently defeated the world’s top human player at the ancient game of Go, beating him in three straight games. Organizers of the playoff were astonished. They had thought the evolution of artificial intelligence necessary to best the intuitive mind of grandmaster Lee Se-Dol would require another 10 years. When smart machines begin to outsmart their creators, all bets are off. Who knows where the competition of man versus machine will lead.
The transition to a machine-run economy raises profound questions about civilization. If the point of economic progress is to improve the well-being of man, and if the arrival of a robotic age is making humans obsolete, the entire human enterprise is at risk. Nearly half of all Americans are dependent to some degree on government benefits. If automation is destined to accelerate the march of workers from the office, shop and factory to the unemployment line, only a great leap forward in the minds of the inventors can enable millions of displaced Americans lead productive lives. Humans, after all, are at their best when faced with a task that challenges their mental and physical gifts.
Change is seldom easy, and there are few guideposts along the path of human experience to lessen the shock of losing to a ’bot. Displaced workers won’t be required to train their replacements, as some human workers are required to do, and robots will hit the ground running. No coffee break required.
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