There has been a lot of talk about technology, specifically robotics, helping businesses cope with increased operating costs. We will not address the politics of changes, as much fun as that sounds; this is not the correct forum for that discussion. Rather, we will try to take a look at what it will take in the future to land and keep a job.
Here's a fun app developed by NPR that will spit out a likelihood of your job being performed by a machine in the future. Want a robot bookkeeper? Looks like you may get your wish soon. The findings are interesting. I'm glad that Dentist has a low percentage. It would be scary to have a robotic arm drilling in my teeth.
This article discusses the correlation between creative output and having a job safe from the robot workforce. It's a good assessment of the current and future uses of technology, automation and robotics.
One project we worked on was a system that allowed hospitals to automate the process of distributing medication from a central pharmacy to various pharmacies throughout a hospital, and eventually to the patient. Some devices allowed the real-time packaging of medication directly for a particular patient. The system had business rules to verify that medication amounts were within normal tolerances. These types of systems will be more and more prevalent. It greatly reduced the time to get patients their medication and eliminated nearly all mistakes.
So what can we do?
Tell the robots they can't have our jobs. The way we do that, is by providing services that cannot be performed by computers or machines. For example, if you want to be in the culinary industry, you best bet is to be a Head Chef, or Personal Chef, versus a Restaurant Cook. Better yet, open up your own restaurant, cupcake shop, deli; you get the idea.
Robotics, automation and technology will change the way we live. Hopefully, it will be an improvement, but change always comes. One thing we need to do, is make sure that we are aware of the changes and continue learning new skills to stay relevant.
