Smart Robots: A Threat to Millions of Workers

Advancements in artificial intelligence will soon enable robots to perform many tasks, putting tens of millions of jobs at risk over the next 30 years. According to Moshe Vardi, director of the Institute for Information Technology at Rice University in Texas, 'We are approaching a time when machines can replace humans in almost any job. Society must answer the question: if machines can do almost everything humans can do, what will humans do?' Automation and 'robotization' have revolutionized the industrial sector over the past 40 years, increasing productivity but also leading to job losses. Vardi states that employment in the manufacturing sector in the United States peaked in 1980 and has been declining since then, with wages among the middle class remaining stagnant. Currently, there are over 200,000 industrial robots in the United States, and this number is on the rise. Vardi believes that 10% of driving-related jobs in the U.S. will be eliminated in the next 25 years due to the rise of driverless cars. Bart Selman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, predicts that 'in the next two to three years, automatic or semi-automatic systems will flood into our society.' Driverless cars, automated reconnaissance aircraft, fully automated commercial systems, along with household robots and other smart assistive devices that make decisions instead of humans are on this list. Will machines remain comprehensible to humans? Can humans control machines? Will machines remain beneficial to humans or become a threat? These are questions being raised due to recent advancements in robotic technology. Stephen Hawking, the prominent British physicist, warned in a 2014 BBC interview that the full development of artificial intelligence technology could lead to the end of humanity. He expressed serious concerns about the implications of creating technology that equals or surpasses human capabilities. Business giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla are at the forefront of this group. Additionally, the Pentagon has requested $19 billion for the development of smart weapon systems. These questions have prompted scientists to call for the establishment of an ethical framework for the development of artificial intelligence in the coming years. Last year, Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX, allocated $10 million for this purpose, believing that artificial intelligence could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons.