Friday, December 23

Robots and Human Workers

Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to permeate our daily lives by 2025. This could have huge implications on several business sectors, most notably healthcare, customer service and logistics. Already, AI is responsible for medical research breakthroughs and climate research, not to mention self-driving cars.

Will robots replace human workers?
The answer to that seems to be divided. According to Pew Research, about half (48%) of experts surveyed felt that robots and digital agents will displace a significant number of blue- and white-collar jobs. Their concern is that this will increase income inequality and create a mass of virtually unemployable people. The other half (52%) expect robotics and AI to create more jobs than they take. This latter half believes that while AI will replace humans, these experts have faith in human ingenuity to create new jobs, industries, and new ways of making a living—much like at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  SOURCE:  Forbes:  May 3, 2022  by Ashley Stahl


There is a good possibility that one or both of these views are correct...  my concern is that since I received my MBA from Wake Forest University (not an Ivy League school), I have learned that business exists for two reasons and the first is to continue to exist and the second is to pay stockholders a nice dividend every 3 months.

In order to pay a nice dividend, business must increase sales or reduce costs or both...  and one way to reduce costs is to invest in robots and not by increasing jobs...  especially American jobs since the benefits that must be paid are very costly.  For every $50,000 in salary, it is expected a total commitment of $150,000 because of benefits or $100,000.  Sick leave, Annual leave, Holiday leave, Healthcare, Lost Productivity...

Eventually, robots will be created to manufacture and program robots...  Writing program code is something that a robot can do better and faster than a human being while testing the code simultaneously.  So, those initial jobs that might increase will decrease faster than they were created...  business is already anticipating that with their long range strategic planning process.

The key here is not the robot but the artificial intelligence...  the closer we get to AI that replicates the mind of a human being, the closer we get to robots replacing everyone...   there will no longer be any need for CEOs, Presidents, Chairmen of the Board, or even stockholders...  wealth will be created without the need to distribute that wealth because there will be no need for investors.  The raw materials will not need to be purchased because there will be no employees to pay...  robots will collect the materials and simply take them to the company for processing.

The manufactured items will not be sold they will be given away as there will be no need for money.  You will simply be given what you need so that you are better off than you were before.  No need for greed.

No comments:

Post a Comment