Discussion»Questions»Jobs» Oxford University estimates tha 47% of American jobs could be automated within the next 2 decades! Could YOUR job done by a robot?
I don't know the answer to your question sweetie. As for your comment I think only certain humans are wired to do that without going nuts! Thank you for your reply Ele. I mean don't robots already perform certain surgeries? They build cars. I wonder if we will ever send robots into space? Why not says I? :)
Because like most universities, research is undertaken worldwide, the article would probably had UK figs as well.. many researchers collaborate even tho not physically together.. we see very often American unis making comments on UK stuff.. if the research is carried out properly I've no objection to that.
A dead person could do my job on most days, but all kidding aside, I have too many interpersonal duties for a robot to take over my job.
This post was edited by SpunkySenior at April 4, 2017 4:17 PM MDT
We hear or read this claim, irrespective of % or nation, so often now, but I wonder if those who make - or merely repeat - is have any idea of the breadth of work carried out every day?
I think the word "robot" is loose - it can be anything from a CNC machine-tool or assembly-line equipment, to an automatic banking system such as the "hole in the wall" machines.
Prior to this "robot" claim we had the supposed experts all telling us we'd "all" be working at home, thanks to the Internet - when you examined what these people were "experts" in, most of them were newspaper columnists, art critics and the like, who could carry out most of their writing at home but who have little or no real idea of life outside their own circles. (The naivety of this high-faluting Family We-all comes out in some of the other stuff they write, too.)
Just quoting a single statistic does not really convey anything, because most of us cannot know the context, qualifying information and so on. Frankly, I can see a mass-production assembly becoming more and more automated; I can see the spread of driver-less, or at least driver-supervised-only, transport, and a few other fields.
How though, can a "robot" deliver goods, create or perform in the arts, diagnose ill people and carry out the necessary medical procedures, cook meals, design and construct buildings (or any other physical object, of any size and complexity), administer companies, institutions and countries, service and repair cars, collect the refuse, look after animals, install kitchens, dig graves, edit publications, plant gardens, serve in the Armed Forces or Emergency Services, carry out scientific research..... etc., etc. ?
Even where much of the work itself can be highly mechanised or computer-controlled, it still needs trained humans to set the system going, over-see it, maintain it. This may have a significant effect on employment - for example, a modern CNC machine-tool needs a skilled programmer / setter who may or may not also be its operator, but once set up it can churn out work-pieces whose manufacture hitherto would have entailed at least two conventional machines, each with its own skilled operator; and at a much faster rate. Consequently many modern precision-engineering component manufacturers can produce far more work in a given time, with far fewer staff, than possible only a few decades ago.
It would be interesting to know how the Oxford University team arrived at their figure, and how accurate a reflection it is of any nation's working life - or were the researchers rather like the so-called "lifestyle" columnists, a bit too insulated from the world to appreciate fully the vast range of tasks and careers every country needs?
Element 99 