Haven't been feeling too well as of late. Add a final exam coming up and the result is a squeezed-out blog post. I do, however, intend on writing every other day for the rest of my internship. I've got exciting things coming down the pipeline which will most likely change my blogging schedule, and perhaps even the outlet from which I publish my writing.
Anyways, I recently wrote about automation in our lives - one of my favorite posts might I add. There is very little one can predict with confidence but I'm undoubtedly sure that as society progresses, so too will the capabilities of artificial intelligence. So much so that we will eventually be competing for jobs with robots. Here's an excerpt from the Bloomberg post that inspired me to return to this subject:
The dividing line between what's routine and what's not is shifting. When the 2003 study was published, truck driving and medical diagnosis fell clearly into the non-routine category. That's no longer the case. According to the Oxford study, taxi drivers and chauffeurs are now among the most at-risk positions, facing an 89 percent probability of becoming automatable. (Considering that Google's fully autonomous cars have already clocked more than half a million test miles, 89 percent may be lowballing it.) Similarly, in health care, IBM's powerful artificial intelligence machine, dubbed Watson, is already getting paid to dispense advice on complex medical treatment decisions.
How do you keep up?
Be As Human As Possible:
The Bloomberg article suggests that the least at-risk roles to be replaced are those that require as little routine as possible. Artistic directors, poets, scientific researches, and managers all require judgement based on extenuating circumstances that artificial intelligence can't [yet] do. Typical middle income jobs, which sadly contain much routine, are going to slowly disappear as robots begin to do our work more efficiently. Even I have been slightly guilty at my internship of planting the seeds of unemployment by automating some of my tasks through VBA.
Learn To Live Amongst The Robots:
In this increasingly technological society there will be those who can automate and those who can't. I truly believe that the more you understand technology, and the better you are at understanding the inner workings of artificial intelligence, the more exempt you are from the trend in middle income job loss. My advice is to start learning more about technology and how it could impact you.
Perhaps you want to learn how to code, or understand hardware. There's an insane abundance of free material online from which to learn from. Whatever it is, try to expand your horizons, you may just be one of the millions who've already created their own jobs.
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