This is not a video review. Although it may sound like it at times. This video is about how automation is changing the world today. There is a comparison to historical times and an explanation to why things are different today. The examples are very limited in scope but I for a short video like this one, they are impactful.
This video presents an ominous picture of the future. However, I agree with it more than I disagree. I work in the technology industry as a data analyst/data engineer and every month I am handed a project which involves the automation of some functionality. I am not even talking about the automation as explained in this video (machine learning). The automation I develop is simple code or by use of tools which eliminate the need for a human being to press a button or even open the file. It’s been two years and I have automated numerous such processes saving many hours or boring monotonous work. It’s after working on projects like this that I slowly start to realize that certain functions of my work can be automated too. (Chill runs down the spine).
The truth is, that there is no clear answer to the question: Will we all lose our jobs to the robots? .
People have ideas but they are untested. Tech companies do not even want to try to answer the question as they will fall behind the race to create the smartest machine in the world if they pause to ask this question. Governments seem to be oblivious to the problem and the alarming number of graduates taking up low skilled jobs doesn’t bother them; at least they have a job.
After watching the video, I went into a micro panic; I typed the following words in the YouTube search bar: FIGHT AGAINST AUTOMATION. The only videos I found were mostly media house produced videos about the very question I have mentioned above, news articles and university videos about how to IMPROVE automation (WTF!). There were no independent videos of people seriously thinking about the question. There was one video:
This was particularly scary for me because I thought that I would find tons of videos of YouTubers ranting against automation and thinking of ways to fight back to protect professions or atleast thinking of ideas to help people stay employed in the future but … nope. No angry YouTubers here. Only rich business owners talking about why their hands are tied:-
All this is not immediately worrying for me. I am a male with a master’s degree and technical skills sitting in front of a laptop. I order my food online. I am a beneficiary of this wave of automation which is sweeping the low skill work market. I cannot empathize with a server in a fast food joint or a worker in a grocery store. But in my own industry I have seen jobs disappearing. There was a time when software testers used to be in demand. I myself had thought of learning extensive software testing (in depth) in the past. But today, I rarely see any jobs for software testers. I do see automation engineering positions a lot though.
Conclusion:-
My fingers are tired. “Hey Google, can you please take this down for me? ”
We are benefiting from automation. But we are also blind to its pitfalls. The lack of voices out there screaming about the challenges automation poses to our collective future is alarming but this picture can be changed. And I think we are moving in the right direction. Although I am afraid our speed is slow.
First, we need to make the effects of automation known far and wide. The word is not out there yet. Also, we must realize that automation is not taking a bottom up approach. It’s is taking a bottom-up, top-down and middle-up-down approach, all at the same time. It is happening in all levels of the corporate hierarchy. So if you are reading this on your computer or mobile screen, start thinking about how this can impact you and your future.
Finding the Method in the Madness 