Pew Internet Research looked at how automation will be affect the workforce through 2025 by querying more than 1900 ‘experts’. They found that about half are worried about jobs being displaced and anything that requires routine decision-making is in danger of becoming automated.
The optimists were fanciful in their ideas about how the working status quo could continue to survive/thrive.
One revealing thread suggested by experts argues that the responsibility will fall on businesses to protect their employees.
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All told, the inevitability of automation in the workplace isn’t an entirely grim prospect. Leaving boring, repetitive tasks to machines could, in fact, make for a cheerier workforce, and allow people to spend more time doing what they actually want to do–whether that’s, say, gardening at home, or handcrafting goods to sell on Etsy.
A utopian idea that companies will look to preserve jobs rather than improve profits or that people will be given more leisure time is pure fantasy. If (and when) large scale automation comes it will be a top-down change that boosts the bottom line with little regard for the social costs. It will be a long time before most workers see any of the benefits and it will take some leadership or popular discontent before it happens.
