Automation and Unemployment Essay

This essay examines the relationship between automation and unemployment. It argues that automation, while increasing productivity and potentially improving living standards, also leads to job displacement, particularly among unskilled workers. The essay uses examples such as McDonald's s...Read More

THE INFORMATION SYSTEM PROFESSIONAL
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Supporting Evidences in Favour of the Statement:.........................................................................3
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................4
Reference:........................................................................................................................................5
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Introduction:
In the language of the hoi polloi, automation means the use of machine in the production process.
In one way, where automation is blamed with the charge that that it replaces human labour and
brings unemployment. The other side of the coin suggests that automation actually brings
improved living standard for workers and social equality as it provides improved productivity
leading to added disposable income at the hands of the labourers or more leisure time for them
by reducing the time required for production. Again, by the term “unemployment”, one means to
say that there are individuals who want to work at the industry specified pay package, but are
deprived of the chances to do that (Shen et al. 2017). The present assignment tries to establish a
cause effect relationship between these two aforesaid concepts – automation and unemployment.
Supporting Evidences in Favour of the Statement:
The customers visiting the McDonald’s outlet on the Third Avenue of the New York City often
get bewildered by seeing that they are not welcomed by a cashier with a smile eager to take their
orders. Instead there is a kiosk namely “Create Your Taste” which is capable to take orders of
one’s most favourite burgers just by the touch of a fingertip (Smith Teerawanit and Hamid,
2018). There is no one to interact yet the act of taking the orders is getting performed smoothly.
There is no denying the fact that the deployment of this automated kiosk has forced many human
beings to lose their hard earned jobs and this trend will go on devouring the job of others as well
in the different outlets of McDonald’s.
Another example related to this consideration can be cited in the form of news published by
Fastbrick Robotics. The Australian tech firm has proudly announced the launching of the
Hadrian X. It is a robot which has the capacity to do a mammoth task of laying more than 1000
bricks within an hour’s time (Prettner and Strulik, 2017). The news might prove to be exciting
for technology enthusiasts. However, it is also necessary to consider the number of labourers the
very robot is going to replace. It is necessary to accept that a human bricklayer would at least
take two full days in laying this huge of number of bricks and this robot is going to save time and
money both for its users, However, it is also necessary to consider the bricklayer who is going to
lose the job due to the use of this robot, is an unskilled worker. It is not at all easy to re-recruit an
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unskilled worker to any other industry sector because an unskilled worker cannot be involved in
the development of the software or producing complex machineries. Thus, this is going to be a
long term unemployment for the bricklayer.
In the year 2015, Simbe Robotics has been successful in developing world’s first robot which has
the capacity of shelf labelling and auditing (Mallinckrodt, 2018). They named it Tally. The
speciality of Tally is that it can roam around a supermarket by the side of human shoppers and
can check whether all the retail products in their respective shelves are properly stocked and
priced or not. Now, The San Francisco based company has rightly made use of the blessings of
science, but its application might not prove to be a blessing for the human workforce working in
those supermarkets whose main responsibility to keep the stock of the retail products a check
(Su, 2018).
Conclusion:
The above mentioned examples reassure the conviction that automation indeed creates
unemployment. However, it is necessary to mention at the same time that the ill effect of
automation is largely felt on the unskilled labour sector as it is almost impossible for the
unskilled labour force to find a suitable re-recruitment opportunity in any other industry sectors.
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Reference:
Mallinckrodt, A., 2018. Automation and Globalisation: The Effects of AI-Based Automation on
the Labour Market Compared to Previous Periods of Globalisation. Available at SSRN 3301642.
Prettner, K. and Strulik, H., 2017. The lost race against the machine: Automation, education, and
inequality in an R&D-based growth model. Education, and Inequality in an R&D-Based Growth
Model (December 1, 2017). cege Discussion Papers, (329).
Shen, W., Autor, D.H., Keynes, J.M., Mokyr, J., Vickers, C., Ziebarth, N.L. and Woirol, G.R.,
2017. New data, new issues: The origins of the technological unemployment
debates. Interfaces, 47(2), pp.188-190.
Smith, N., Teerawanit, J. and Hamid, O., 2018, October. AI-Driven Automation in a Human-
Centered Cyber World. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics (SMC) (pp. 3255-3260). IEEE.
Su, G., 2018. Unemployment in the AI Age. AI Matters, 3(4), pp.35-43.
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