Love your job or lose it to a robot
By: Daniel Otero
The truth is, whether we like it or not, our world is going to change radically in the next several decades. Therefore, love your jobs and do them with passion; you never know when you’ll be obsoleted by a machine.
The truth is coming to towns near you, around this country and the world. It’s the future and it’s already here.
Walking through a mall, you can see a cute-funny robot certainly helping out customers.
Yes, TV series like Star Trek which greatly predicted the future, has now come to light. It’s a glimpse at our reality, look at shows like BBC’s Humans. Or the captivating movie directed by Steven Spielberg, “A.I.”.
Robots will start to become a permanent part of our lives in the next 20 to 30 years. By the next century, they’ll be doing jobs which human beings either don’t want to do, don’t have to do and by rendering certain careers obsolete.
Let me take you back to 2009, when I entered a supermarket back in the States and some of the cashiers weren’t human, but machine controlled.
It was certainly an eye-opener. It made me literally feel surreal and honestly, ‘obsolete’.
Then when Jack Ma is planing to the same thing with Alibaba, automated cashiers.
I just said, “Genius!”
First, a robot doesn’t have to get paid, just programmed. It can work without getting tired, it doesn’t get hungry, bored, sleepy or sick. It doesn’t have mood swings like we do and doesn’t hold a temperament good or bad with the consumers.
But what’s the sacrifice when we eliminate these jobs? Is it our humanity for a soulless machine? What’s the ethical issue here? Well, corporations save money when they don’t have to pay employees. And are we destroying our future?
The problem is, we’ll be possibly eliminating good and bad employees all together.
And there’s a unique truth, man will become part of machines and machines will become part of man [literally] in the next 200 years. Look at how they’re becoming part of humans, with implants for amputees and braces to help paraplegics or quadriplegics walk again.
With machines we have made great strides. Take for example a letter from here [China] to San Francisco. The letter at its fastest if it’s sent express, two to three days! How long does it take with an e-mail? It takes on average 30 seconds to one minute. However, at what cost? Look at the layoffs and loss of business of the postal services around the world. Packages are continuously sent; however, 40 percent of letters have declined dramatically in the last 20 years.
There’s one more thing and one thing I have constantly experienced. When I go to a certain bank, which I won’t name. I have to sometimes and not always–put up with rude customer-service representatives. I’m begging them for service and upon ignorant and indifferent glances. I have to first get angry and then, cool off to deal with the transaction at hand.
Lately, a robot was implemented and it has been giving customer service. The ladies and gentlemen at customer service look at it snobbishly and with indifference.
I voice towards the end of my transaction, “Wake-up, ladies and gentlemen! If you don’t start doing your jobs, this here machine will gladly do it for you. Love your jobs and do it with passion or you’ll soon lose your positions to this contraption.”
End of lesson.
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