According to a University of Chicago study, robots cause unemployment. As devastating as the study results sound, they only present a part of the picture. Looking at the bigger picture, one can easily understand how machines in the past caused unemployment and created new employment opportunities.
Let’s take a detailed look at how machines or AI causes unemployment and how the process is reversed:
Unemployment Due to AI – How It Happens
The study above recounts the example of Detroit city’s mass unemployment as vehicle factories replaced employees with robots. It also includes increased unemployment at the beginning of the western industrial revolution.
These past and contemporary examples make it easy to understand why unemployment due to AI or machines takes place. Replacing humans with machines increases efficiency and reduces cost, generating greater profit for business owners.
How Unemployment Due to AI Is Reversed
Machines are indeed more efficient than humans. However, machines cannot work on their own. A human being must ensure that machines are up-to-date and perform efficiently. Thus, as much as machines cause unemployment, they cannot rid a business of all human resources.
Furthermore, as a business’s efficiency increases and it finds greater chances of growth, it adds more machines to its resources. In turn, more machines require more humans to ensure their maintenance and smooth operations. Thus, machines create employment opportunities.
Impact of AI on Employment Statistics
AI’s impact on employment statistics can vary from one industry to another. However, it must be noted that AI differs from robots and cannot have the same impact as robots on human employment rates. Experts have predicted a negative impact of AI on customer representative jobs. This particular industry may suffer from unemployment due to AI, but there are little to no chances of any other industry getting affected by AI similarly.
Other industries are expected to receive a positive impact through AI integration. AI can significantly shoulder employee work pressure, increasing efficiency and leading to organizational growth. However, only those organizations that can benefit from AI integration can afford to invest in it soon.
AI and Economic Collapse
Big corporations have an unfair advantage in the current scenario. As only big corporations can afford to invest in AI, they can ensure greater and faster growth, crushing their competition. While medium-sized businesses may still find a way to survive, small businesses may be eliminated from the picture.
Ultimately, it can further bridge the income and profit gap between big business owners and everyone else. AI can contribute to the unfortunate reality of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. However, the greater wealth divide can drastically impact big businesses negatively too. Unemployment due to AI and the elimination of all competition can lead to an economic collapse where the big businesses wouldn’t be able to sell their products, no matter how cheaply and efficiently they are produced.
Final Thoughts
No society can run completely on robots and robot engineers. Every society needs diverse individuals who can contribute to it in unique ways.
The example of Japan instills hope in the situation. It is the country with the most advanced robotics technology and the most number of robots, yet its employment rate is among the lowest in the world, at under three percent.
