Will robots eliminate boring jobs forever?
Will Artificial Intelligence signal the end of boring work, and will robots eventually enable us to give up work altogether?
One of the ironies of living in a globalised, connected world where we have more exposure to more kinds of people than ever before is that our suspicion and fear of others has increased rather than decreased. More and more people are living in gated communities, and private security guards patrol our schools, hospitals, offices and even streets. The number of private security guards in America has doubled since the 1980s to over 1 million today. There are now as many security guards in America as there are teachers. The private security industry is now worth $180bn globally, more than the total international aid budget to end global poverty ($140bn a year).
In Britain, 232,000 private guards were employed in 2015, compared with 151,000 police officers.
For 99% of the time, there is very little for these security guards to actually do. Instead, they pace up and down mall walkways relentlessly, or sit in small cabins in car parks staring at banks of CCTV monitors. Boredom flows through their bodies as they work out different ways of standing, looking, walking, sitting. It is a far cry from the active hunting and gathering lifestyle that humans once had. Indeed, it is a far cry from the physical work of farming, mining and manufacturing that we once undertook. Patrolling a shop for hours on end or sitting in empty office overnight provides little human interaction, little opportunity for human growth and little opportunity for productive thought. Security guards are sometimes paid to wear a uniform and sit and do absolutely nothing.
I once worked for 8 hours as a warden at St Aldates Fair in Oxford. It is one of the biggest, most exciting fairs I have been to. There are thousands of lights attached to the rides, stalls and tents. There are colours everywhere, and each ride has its own pumping soundtrack to attract the attention of the crowds. Thousands of interesting people attend the fair, and as a warden I was free to wander up and down as much as I wanted ‘acting as a presence’. Even though it was one of the most visually stimulating environments you can imagine, it was also one of the most boring things I have ever done. Although it was only 8 hours of my life, the boredom sticks with me to this day as a lesson to myself never to do such work again.
The advent of robots, artificial intelligence and driving cars heralds the beginning of the end for many of these jobs, however. Self-propelled, wheeled security robots are already on patrol in Sacramento, Boston, Atlanta and Dallas. They are cheaper than humans, require no health insurance, never ask for a raise and work 24 hours a day. As Amazon launches its first cashier free shops, 7.5m retail jobs in the US are estimated to be under threat from computerisation, and 800m people globally are set to lose their jobs to robots by 2030.
The potential for technology to replace human jobs is nothing new. In the late 18th Century, a young apprentice weaver called Ned Ludd started vandalising the new automated looms and knitting frames that were replacing weavers and textile workers across Britain. Other desperate weavers followed by breaking into factories and smashing textile machines. These workers, expressing their fear at what this new technology represented, became known as “Luddites”, a term still in use today to describe anyone with a fear of new technology.
In reality, as technology evolves, new industries emerge and new jobs are created. As cars replaced horses, mechanics were needed to fix the cars. As Amazon replaced shops, people were needed to wrap the products and deliver them. And yet the scale and speed of change linked to the advent of artificial intelligence has the potential to eliminate millions of jobs incredibly quickly. Such change will create severe social challenges if not tackled quickly. Indeed, there is research to suggest that areas already losing jobs lost to automation saw a 10% increase in the share of votes for Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election.
Although it will bring us immense new productivity, Bill Gates suggests that “AI is just the latest in technologies that allow us to produce a lot more goods and services with less labor." This requirement for ‘less labor’ has led to increasing calls for people to be paid a universal basic income to protect them from the impact of such changes. There are those that think that this is morally imperative:
“basic minimum earnings should be instituted so that there is nobody that is having to sleep on the street. One hundred percent, I think that is really important” Richard Branson
Those that think it is inevitable:
"There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation...I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen." Elon Musk
And those that think that a universal basic income would provide the ultimate freedom for people to pursue different careers, activities and interests without the pressure of worrying where the next pay cheque will come from:
“We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas” Mark Zuckerberg
The American futurist and social engineer Jacque Fresco took this concept a step further and envisaged a world without money altogether. His Venus Project suggests that automation will one day allow robots to distribute resources around the world equally, allowing humanity to live in a world without any government, wars, money or jobs. If robots give everyone everything they need for free, then humans would be free to love, learn, live, explore and grow without ever having to grind away at a 9-5 job. And if everyone had everything, there would be no need for security guards...
