Will robots replace our jobs?

The answer to this question will depend on many factors like which country are you living in, what industry you are working in, what your occupation is, and whether your current employer has the capability and capacity to automate your job over the next few years.

It also depends on what skills you currently have and what skills you intend to acquire in the future to future-proof yourself.

Future-proofing is the process of understanding what’s happening today with the labour markets, anticipating potential impacts of technology, demographic changes and economics on these markets, and taking proactive steps to prepare yourself for these anticipated impacts.

It’s inevitable that over time many tasks and jobs will be created and eliminated by technology, demographic changes, and economics.

Robots are certainly coming to take our jobs.

It’s a question of when not if.

It’s also a question of how prepared are we for the inevitable.

We saw this played out in the industrial revolution where machines took over a lot of physical labour. Jobs were lost, but new ones were also created. Standards of living improved, productivity increased, and work became easier for many.

We saw this again in the digital or information age. Computers took over a lot of mundane work and repetitive processing. Jobs were lost, but new ones were also created.

What we know is that businesses are not creating the middle-class jobs that were the backbone of the economy for more than a half-century.

Automation will affect everyone. It is predicted that it will create more problems for young people, those less educated, and groups that already receive less training and education.

In essence, there will always be winners and losers.

Winners are those whose jobs will be augmented or upskilled and those with the skills needed for new jobs that are yet to be created. Losers are those who will be displaced.

Depending on your external circumstances, and personal capability and capacity, how you anticipate, prepare and future-proof yourself now will determine whether you are a winner or a loser when robots do show up at your doorstep.

Organisations can choose to use technology in one of two ways: substitution or augmentation.

Substitution uses technology to replace entire jobs or most of the tasks associated with certain jobs.

In the past, machines were used to take over tasks that were considered too taxing, too dangerous, or too mundane to be done by humans.

As an example, self-driving trucks will someday be used to displace millions of truck drivers currently on the road.

Augmentation, on the other hand, uses both technology and human talents collaboratively to supplement and improve work in a way that makes us more efficient or better in some way and to enhance both performance and quality of our jobs.

This has freed us up to do the higher-skilled and more refined tasks such as decision making, planning, and checking.

This is where problem definition, information flows, work design, and development of new applications like IBM’s Watson are co-owned by key stakeholders to deliver win-win outcomes for everyone.

Organisations are increasingly recognising that technologies are most effective when they complement human, not replacing them. Technological tools will require human oversight. Human skills are needed to manage artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation.

For example, many self-driving technologies are slowly being adopted as ways to make driving easier and much safer.

Since 1980, substitution and augmentation have had differential effects on countries, industries, and occupations.

When we categorise work as (1) either routine or non-routine; and (2) either cognitive or manual, occupations that have been most affected by technology generally are those involving routine manual work.

Routine work consists of tasks that can be codified and reduced to well-defined rules, steps or procedures. Non-routine work consists of tasks that are discretionary in nature.

Cognitive work involves tasks such as problem-solving, reasoning, communication, high-level judgment, and persuasion.

If you are doing tasks like record-keeping, calculation or repetitive customer service, then your job is most at risk.

If you are working in a clerical job, transportation job, or manufacturing job, then you are likely to be replaced by robots. We have seen wages for those in administrative and manufacturing occupations increased the least.

If a large component of what you do involves people, research, development, and design, then there’s less likelihood that robots will replace your job. Technicians, professionals, and managers are safe, for the moment. Wages have grown the most for these occupations.

If you are working in a service-oriented job, then technological incursions into these non-routine manual tasks have been much slower.

Waitresses, food preparation, personal care, and protective services do tasks that involve situational awareness, interpersonal interactions, and physical adeptness that computers have yet to master. These jobs will be relatively untouched for now.

While the demand for labour in these occupations has been relatively strong, the supply of workers willing to do these jobs has also grown faster due in part to those who were displaced from administrative and manufacturing occupations gravitating to these lower-paying service-orientated jobs. Hence, the weak wage increases for these non-routine manual occupations.

If we live in a country where there are urgency, capability, and capacity to automate repetitive or manual tasks, then our jobs will not be secure.

We should note that future developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive technologies are very likely to encroach on many previously untouched non-routine or cognitive tasks that are common in technical, professional, and managerial occupations.

The bottom line is that you must focus on doing things that machines don’t do well or cannot be replaced by machine algorithm.

You should focus on things like research, development, and design – the technical stuff.

And you should also focus on things like creativity, problem-solving, teamwork, coaching, and activities involving human-to-human interaction – the people side of things.

Here’s the problem.

If future designers of technology and decision-makers continue on the current path of thinking primarily in terms of eliminating human judgment and variation, then organisations will continue to eliminate labour costs through substitution instead of improving innovation, agility, and productivity through augmentation.

Each one of us has an active role to play in augmenting technology for our own benefit and to protect our future incomes.

What’s important to remember is that we cannot put our head in the sand and hope for the best outcome by doing nothing.

Without a doubt, it is often said that we do not plan to fail, but we just fail to anticipate and plan for a positive outcome for ourselves.

We have to understand, anticipate, and participate in the future of work in order for us to remain employable well into the future.

Don’t blame others for the negative outcomes where we choose not to be involved.

So, the answer to the question Will robots replace my job? is entirely in your hands.

How you choose to respond now will determine how future-ready you are for the future of work.

Fear is okay, but complacency will kill your job.