The Age of Automation: Welcome to the Next Great Revolution:
It is a positive sign that more and more articles and research are being published on this topic. In particular, the impact of automation on jobs is getting more attention in the press. Up until very recently, most people dismissed this development as just another step in our technology progress. Like farm jobs loss lead to manufacturing jobs, which moved overseas and were automated leading to service sector jobs. Loss of these jobs, like call centers, secretaries, bank tellers…. would be made up with new jobs.
As I have been involved in the push to automate more and more jobs, I thought we were under estimating the speed and breadth of these new technologies and the ability of workers to adjust. The participation rate of eligible workers in the workforce has gone down. I see this as a sign that more people are having difficulty retraining for the future of jobs. Also, as we have seen with the loss of good paying manufacturing jobs, the replacement jobs are lower paying putting more people on the edge of poverty. Capitalism without social intervention will continue to move money to the few. leaving the majority struggling. The promise of machines doing work and freeing up humans to do other things besides work is not being realized. Our culture strongly believes that work defines us in society so we don’t respect those that don’t “work”. This is going to have to change if we want to realize all the benefits. If we don’t, the owners of the machines and those few that can serve them will reap all the rewards.