[caption id=”attachment_143700″ align=”aligncenter” width=”1024″] A receptionist dinosaur robot performs at the new robot hotel, aptly called Henn na Hotel or Weird Hotel, in Sasebo, southwestern Japan.(AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File)
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The robots are coming, just as Karel Čapek warned almost a century ago.
The Atlantic points to a study where two Oxford researchers concluded that machines “are likely to take over 47 percent of today’s jobs within a few decades.”
Robots, however, discriminate.
Jobs held by women, primarily, are at less risk of technological obsolescence than jobs held primarily by men. Potentially, a large economic shift grows on the horizon.
Male-dominated professions tend to require physical labor — lumberjacks, construction workers, etc. Some jobs are at risk, regardless of physical requirements; commodity traders could face replacement by sophisticated algorithms.
Robots can analyze large volumes of data and save labor. Female-dominated professions such as nursing, in contrast, require emotional sensitivity and critical-thinking, skills that robots cannot emulate so easily.
It’s important to look beyond the possibilities of robots. Labor-saving and cost-saving robots don’t just “destroy” jobs.
They lower costs for businesses — and consumers — that spurs more innovation, productivity, and jobs. The economist Joseph Schumpeter referred to this process as “creative destruction,” where one model becomes outmoded by the creation of a new model.
Rather than a future where women become the breadwinners as men fail to compete in the economy, new avenues will open for economic development and growth.
All hail the new robot overlords.
