Will Robots replace human workers in the future ?

Perhaps you have already heard about Sophia the humanoid robot created by Hanson Robotics, a company based in Hong Kong (see above).This “female robot” did the rounds of the TV studios, gave interviews and has even received Saudi citizenship. However, not everyone is so enthusiastic for this growing interest for humanoid robots especially concerning the labor market. First of all, it is crucial to make the difference between automated robots that are usually used in the industrial sector and the humanoid robots which have an appearance based on that human body and can communicate with us. To understand this phenomenon, let’s consider the country where humanoid robots have become part of people daily life: Japan. Indeed, it has become increasingly common for Japanese people to see a robot take an order or serve a cup of coffee. There is even an hotel run almost entirely by robots it ranges from the dinosaur robots which run the check-in desk to robot fish in the aquarium !

But why do Japanese love robots so much ? The answer lies in the Japanese culture, the Japanese believe that all things have a soul even inanimate things such as robots. From a societal point of view, the Japanese population is aging. Android robot will help elderly people and avoid loneliness in the coming years. Japanese people work hard so they have little time for family or relationships. The only solution that the government has found is to create companions robots.

There are also economic benefits for the country and for Japanese companies. The population is declining to cover the labor shortage, companies use robots. Robots can work all the time consequently they increase productivity in factories. Nevertheless, humanoid robots could in the future take jobs from people working in the service sector: Robots like Sophia can easily work as receptionist and office workers. A famous robot called Pepper has even been hired by a bank in Taiwan. It shows that Robots have the intellectual capacities to work in the service sector and are able to carry out tasks that are no longer just repetitive. Human beings can not compete with artificial intelligence which has all the answers to customer’s questions. If we take the example of the hotel run almost entirely by robots, there are about 140 robots working in each hotel but only 7 human workers. The creator of this kind of hotel want to open 100 new “Robots hotels” in the next few years. Perhaps, if we consider the Japanese economic situation with the decline of the population, the rise of robot workers is not a big deal and could even help the country. In contrast, the use of robots can have serious negative consequences on other countries’ economy.

There is a worldwide debate about robots if we ask some economists the following question: do you think that Robots could cause mass unemployment in the future? Some economists would say yes whereas others would say no. The supporters of robots believe that people forget the indirect advantages of robots new technology creates jobs of course there are direct jobs for people who create and maintain it but we tend to forget the indirect effect of new technology. When a company can product more with less, it is possible to expand and have new products or open new locations and companies can offer their products at a lower price to compete. It has consequences on consumers’ purchasing power because they are able to buy more or use their savings to buy other things and all these possibilities involve creating new jobs. To sum up, thanks to new technology our standard of living has improved. Automated robots have replaced men in factories but this doesn’t affect the total number of jobs in the economy because of the offsetting effects.

Throughout history, Humans have seen this kind of process where inventions have consequences on works which were replaced by others this process continues with the arrival of robots but maybe too fast and people are not prepared for that. It is on this point that opponents are reluctant to see robots work. We are entering a new phase where even high-skilled jobs are also at risk. According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with the improvement of new technologies “there will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robots cannot do better”. Today, robots are able to understand foreign languages and to recognize faces, it can do many things that we have always thought just possible for humans.

If we take the example of jobs in hospital hundreds of thousands are on the line because new technology can analyse scan results, biopsies and can even do some surgical procedures.

We don’t know how exactly what will happen in the future on the labor market because of the use of robots. However, what is certain is that new technology will affect every blue-collar and white- collar workers and will redefine our capacity to adapt on the labor market.

Lisa.c