Can AI replace Manual Labour?
Every part of the workforce will be assisted or augmented through artificial intelligence and automation if economics continue to evolve. Some forms of manual labour will be entirely automated, and the doom signals are already circulating, alerting about the imminence of chronic joblessness.
Anticipation caused by automation about job losses is nothing new. There were likely a few people who criticised the invention of the wheel as stealing work from firm-backed labourers. There are a few jobs still exists and yet to be conceived that will never be automated completely.
Automation Experts
The promise of future career sustainability is quite apparent. With AI and robotics contribution to economies, more job opportunities will open for humans who specialise in designing and maintaining the machines that save both time and labour. Ultimate control masters would specialise in maintaining robot ethics possessing an ultimate kill switch to deactivate rogue AI.
AI might fail, producing convincing results that humans would consider satisfactory. Humans are mandatory to root out binary conspiracies and prosecute against malicious code.
Creative Producers
Humans can identify analogies uniquely, formulate metaphors and apply abstractions to media for mass consumption. This complex thought processes elude AI.
Art requires originality in the use of metaphor, analogy, and abstraction. The outcome of such a process, known as a work of art, turns into a consumer good which can be sold and delivered through automated workflow.
Creativity cannot be taught. A corollary to an axiom is that even most creative engineers and computer scientists often fail programming machines to be creative. A holographic Tupac is a ghost concept in machines, an artificial body with an equally artificial mind which is not capable of deriving new rhymes.
Teachers
Speaking of teaching, AI is unlikely to master the necessary soft skills to replace teachers. A machine could offer a bit more stimulation for learners.
Instructions can be made more efficient with the help of robots and automated processes. But learning is more about rote lessons that programme algorithms will repeat each semester as pupils were rolling along a factory line. Humans have empathy for the growing minds of other humans as they are capable of identifying and encouraging both the curiosity and creativity for those minds to remain active and healthy.
Healthcare workers
Doctors and nurses go through training that helps them diagnose illnesses and injuries with a clinical distance from humanity. Despite that, they are themselves human, and their careers are all about caring for others.
Machines require no clinical training as they are inherently unemotional. It is also same for automation augments healthcare services just like other industries, but McKinsey & Company’s report shows that machines can replace less than 30% of a human nurse’s duties.
Business Managers
Would you rely on a machine when it comes to your company’s hiring and firing? What about constructive feedback for employees? Will AI be ever capable of enabling such career-enhancing advice?
Businesses require living beings, breathing managers. Algorithms cannot review the kind of performance that needs subjective analysis; interpret emotional cues, measure intangibles such as enthusiasm or loyalty. Communication between machines is wooden. Hence the rewards they offer are unimaginative.
Jobs that require direct interaction with consumers will be hard for robotic workers to replace. As the resemblance between humans and artificial objects grows, most of the people feel distressed or even disgusted. If robots come into physical contact with consumers, the impact would become more striking.
