What If Robots Took Our Jobs? Robocops Can They
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medium to medium to large large small INSTANT small GENIUS WHAT IF ROBOTS TOOK OUR JOBS? ROBOCOPS CAN THEY THINK FOR THEMSELVES? ROBOTS STRANGESTWHAT IDEAS IF... FEATURE ROBOTS TOOK OUR WHAT IF... ( JOBS? ) WORDS: HAYLEY BENNETT THIS NEW SERIES EXPLORES THE RUNAWAY CONSEQUENCES OF HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS. ILLUSTRATION: JOE WALDRON IF THERE’S SOMETHING YOU’D LIKE US TO ANSWER, GET IN TOUCH AT [email protected] Would we be happier in a The futurist Martin Ford intelligence (AI) infiltrating argues in his 2015 book The every aspect of our lives, world without work? Rise Of The Robots that we are plans are being made for a headed for a future of post-work era. But without a “technological unemployment”, regular routine and a wage, brought about by automation will we slump into sofa-ridden and algorithms. Soon enough, despair, live a life of leisure, or our jobs will be taken over by – just maybe – find time to robots, and with artificial solve the climate crisis? 1 FEATURE STRANGESTWHAT IF... IDEAS STRANGESTWHAT IDEAS IF... FEATURE 1 There will still be some jobs How many of us will really lose our jobs to robots? A 2018 British Academy and Royal Society report found that 10 to 30 per cent of UK jobs are “highly automatable”, meaning they could soon be done by machines. Manufacturing has already encountered substantial losses; fast food preparation, admin and accountancy jobs are up next, according to the report, while drivers will eventually be replaced by autonomous vehicles. However, the report also predicts that humans will hold on to some lower-paid and manual jobs, such as caring for children and the elderly, and plumbing. 2 A look to the past suggests we’re unlikely to In 1929, an entire community in Germany and started speaking to lose all of our jobs, says Dr Luke Martinelli, a Austria became unemployed hundreds of people looking for policy researcher at the University of Bath. We’d be overnight when the textiles jobs. Their 2019 study confirmed This was predicted in the 19th Century and factory that provided work to that being out of work causes again in the 1930s, and it didn’t happen. “So almost everyone in the village of distress due to seven unmet there’s a [view] that humans will always have pretty Marienthal closed down. This psychological needs, the most work – we’ll just do different things,” says became the inspiration for social important being collective Martinelli, suggesting we’ll keep the darn psychologist Marie Jahoda’s life’s purpose: work makes our lives more creative jobs and those requiring work, crystallised in her meaningful. This suggests that interpersonal skills. But then, he adds, the miserable ‘deprivation theory’ of robot-induced mass unemployment more pessimistic stance is that robots could unemployment. Jahoda, who would make us miserable. How feasibly do anything. On the creative front, for spent many weeks with the locals miserable? We can only rely on example, machine learning systems are in Marienthal, proposed an what little we know from long- already churning out paintings, sculptures, explanation for the hardship term studies of unemployment. music and even film trailers that are people experience when they are “People’s wellbeing is on a plateau indistinguishable from human art. unemployed. Work doesn’t just for months or even some years Taken to its logical conclusion, this scenario provide money, but also fulfils afterwards,” says Zechmann. would eventually see us bowing down before basic psychological needs “This obviously means that many our robot rulers. In fact, New Zealand already including social contact, status people who are unemployed for a has a virtual, AI-powered politician called Sam, and time structure. Yet no one long time find themselves in a who can talk – without mistruth or rigorously tested Jahoda’s ideas depression.” Of course, this is in a misrepresentation – to prospective voters, and until Dr Andrea Zechmann and world where people continue is reportedly running for parliament in the next her colleague Prof Dr Karsten Paul searching for work. What happens election. Maybe that’s one job that robots could at the Friedrich-Alexander without any prospect of re- do better... University Erlangen-Nürnberg in employment is difficult to predict. 2 3 FEATURE STRANGESTWHAT IF... IDEAS STRANGESTWHAT IDEAS IF... FEATURE 3 There’d be 5 more time for... There’d probably other things still be housework One way to plug a giant, work- volunteers or ‘citizen scientists’ sized hole in our daily schedules monitor butterfly populations and would be to fill it with more work, beach litter. The jobless could just not of the paid variety. “In a swell the ranks. post-work world, what seems For those who prefer not to important to me is that people can spend their free time working, substitute employment with a how about looking to the early 4 purposeful activity,” says 1800s for a blueprint of an Austen- Zechmann. “For example, this esque future where people sit could be engaging in voluntary around all day matchmaking and We’d get money work, which some people already throwing high society balls? do, because it pertains to Appealing, but few of us would for nothing collective purpose – you can work have the money for such to a greater goal.” extravagances – Mr Darcy was Perhaps we could give our lives worth roughly £6m a year in In a work-scarce future, the gap between rich purpose by helping the robots to today’s money. Even Callendar, in and poor is predicted to grow, as a small, solve some of the world’s most his leisurely pursuit of climate tech-savvy elite occupies the few remaining pressing problems. In the days change data, had the benefit of his high-paid jobs. A 2019 European Commission before science became a bona fide steam engineer father’s 22-room report on AI and work highlighted a risk to profession, there were unfunded mansion and greenhouse low-paid and routine jobs, which could or self-funded ‘natural laboratory. And matchmaking “exacerbate inequality significantly”. The philosophers’. Even as late as the will probably be done by the report also explores the idea of a universal 1930s, Guy Callendar, who robots, anyway – dating apps basic income to help bridge the divide. discovered climate change, was already use algorithms and Although many versions exist, basic income more of a hobbyist than a machine learning to up our schemes generally aim to provide people with qualified academic. Today, chances of finding a sweetheart. a regular income to cover essential living costs. Some are totally unconditional, while others depend on meeting certain criteria. Ongoing basic income trials exist, such as a 12-year-long Kenyan project across 120 villages, funded by a US charity. But as Dr Luke Martinelli, who studies basic income, explains, it’s hard to Imagined post-work futures don’t spend any time our household home – for example, using care robots design a realistic trial. “The Kenyan one is just usually take into account all of the appliances save us on deeper to help us look after children and giving people money,” he says. “It doesn’t unpaid domestic labour that forms a cleaning and increasingly engaging elderly parents. But she says there’s a consider the other side of the equation where substantial part of our lives. Even if activities for our children. A 2016 “moral value” attached to doing this [in the absence of charity funding] the state we have a liveable basic income, and study by Oxford University work ourselves that often leads to us would have to claw back the money through a sense of purpose from some kind of researchers, for example, showed that “dismissing automation out of hand”. the tax system.” So in reality, such a scheme community endeavour, we’ll still in the US, a woman with one child So perhaps the greatest hurdle to could end up being funded by any remaining have the washing up to do and the does about two fewer hours of having more robots in our homes is well-paid workers, through higher tax rates. kids to put to bed. cooking and cleaning a day than she not technological, but our own The general consensus is that a basic income According to Dr Helen Hester, did in the 1920s, but an hour or more reservations about handing the work would provide only enough for a meagre living, technofeminism researcher and of this is reabsorbed into childcare. over to machines. meaning many of us would still be seeking author of the upcoming book After So it’s likely that, whatever household part-time work. Martinelli describes it as a Work: The Fight For Free Time, the robots we employ, we’ll still end up by HAYLEY BENNETT “boost” for the worst-off and, for others, a machines we’ve introduced to the carrying out some domestic tasks. (@gingerbreadlady) chance to pursue new kinds of work. household so far have provided only Hester thinks that we could be Hayley is a freelance science writer and limited relief. This is because we more open to automating care work at editor, working (without robots) in Bristol. 4 5 ROBOTS THE ROBOCOPS ARE HERE AS ROBOTIC POLICE HEAD OUT ON THE STREET OF DUBAI, WE LOOK AT THE TECHNOLOGY THAT’S SET TO REVOLUTIONISE LAW AND ORDER Hayley Bennett Words: PHOTO: GETTYPHOTO: ROBOTS 2 “Dubai, it seems, is on a mission to dehumanise its police services. The 3 city’s streets will be patrolled by the OR-3 autonomous police car” 1. ROBO ROZZERS Visitors to Dubai’s busy shopping arcades may be surprised to find themselves under the protection of a humanoid police robot.