Name: Thinh Hoang
Human is never displaced by Robots
In the article “Replaced by a Robots”, the author believes that as the advantage of technology, employer should replace human workforce with robotic workforce. The author show that robots can work equally with human, they can even do “decisions-making and creativity”. Besides, robots or computers may do the job better than human. To prove for this argument, the author gives us two examples. The first one is robots can investigate from the criminal document more accurately than lawyers. The second one is the surgical robots will always have a perfect cut, while doctors may not have because of the shaking of doctor’s hands. However, I don’t think that we should replace human with robots in the workplaces. The increase of using robots or computer may cause the increase of unemployment rate. Besides, because human is father of robots, robots can’t run themselves without human. Some more points we have to know that there are several of jobs which are not suitable for robots and there are still have risks when using robots in workplace
First, thousands of workers are becoming and will become unemployed workers since robots are applied in the workplaces. Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, who studied the US labor market between 1990 and 2007, found that when each robot is added to work there are about 3 to 5 jobs will be lost and it also causes to the decrease of wages. According to U.S Department of Labor, this negative impact “slightly diminish as a worker’s education level increases”, it means this issue effect to poor workers more than the rich one. Every month, how unemployed workers do in order to deal with many payments, such as house rent, insurance, car, bills, without having a job. It is very hard and even harder for poor workers. Since these workers struggle with their life they may have some dangerous action, they may kill themselves or even kill innocent people. A research show that people who are unemployment have the want to suicide more than employment people and there are about 45,000 suicides were cause by unemployment during 2000 to 2010. So, if we want to displace human by robots we must seriously look at the consequence of this issue.
Second, although computers are very smart in doing their jobs, they can’t stay in the workplace without human. Human creates computers and programs them for specific job, furthermore, robots need to be installed in the workplace manually by human. For that, without human they are just a bunch of iron machines. As we know, a machine can work for a long time but cannot work eternally, after a certain of time it need to be maintained or fixed, otherwise it will break. Besides, even robots can do their jobs perfectly, they cannot do other jobs because they are not programed to do that. It means they are unable to handle unexpected situations happen. For example, while working and the electrical system shut down suddenly, who will check and turn the system on again? Of course, human do it. In sum, robots can survive without human.
Next, though robots can work better than human in several jobs, there many jobs that human is the best choice. It is easy to see that robots are much less emotional than human, so if the job requires the sense of emotion human must be the best choice. For instance, chef is the job that never need robots. Robots don’t eat, nor smell or taste like human. Only human can express the art of cooking. Besides, artist is one more job that robots can’t do as same as human. Nowadays, robots can speak, move, but they never have the ability to speak and move fluently and smoothly as human. Robots don’t even have the creativity as human has, that why robots never become artist. Furthermore, lack of empathy is one of the major disadvantage of robots. Because of that, although robots are working very well in medical field, they are unable to become doctors or psychologists who are empathetic people. As doctors or psychologists, the more they care and understand the more their patients feel better and recover faster. So, “artificial intelligence, in the realm of art, is just that – artificial”.
Last, it still has risk when using robots. We know that inside a robot there are many of circuits, chips and wires. If just one of the circuits or chips go wrong, it will cause a terrified consequence. For example, now we have driverless vehicle, which can operate themselves without our control. Pretend, we are in a driverless car on the highway and we let the car drive itself, suddenly a circuit of the car is broken, what will happen? I must be a consternate accident. Moreover, in a surgery, if doctor feel not good he or she can stop and be displace by another. However, if we use a surgical robot, we may not shut it down before it hurt patient seriously. Besides, because robots are operated by electrical system, so when a part of this system has problem, may cause to the electric shock or even explosion. For instance, in June 2016, a NASA’s robots named RoboSimian exploded after the failure of battery.
Finally, the idea of using robots in workplace is brilliant, because it will maximize the quantity and quality of work. However, the scene that human mostly replace with robots in the work will hardly happen. People lose their job and the society will be unbalance is the first consequence that we must seriously and deeply think about when we want to apply more robots or computer in work. Robots seem like very wonderful, but when the job need the sense of emotion, they will be useless. Moreover, even we apply robots in the work, we still need the human oversees not only to install and preserve robots, but also to handle some unpredicted situations happen the workplace. Besides, we must be careful while using robots, because if robots go wrong they can cause to danger
References
The Guardian. (2015, February 11). Retrieved from Unemployment causes 45,000 suicides a year worldwide, finds study: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/11/unemployment-causes-45000-suicides-a-year-worldwide-finds-study
Think Business. (n.d.). Retrieved from The Job that Robots can't do: https://www.thinkbusiness.ie/articles/jobs-robotss-cant-do/
Thompson, A. (2016, October 27). Popular Machenics. Retrieved from Battery Blows Up and Destroys NASA Robots: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robotss/a23583/nasa-exploding-batteries/
Vincent, J. (2017, March 28). The Verge. Retrieved from Robotss do destroy jobs and lower wages, says new study: https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15086576/robots-jobs-automation-unemployent-us-labor-market
Works, R. (2017, June 20). United States Department of Labor. Retrieved from The impact of technology on labor markets: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/beyond-bls/the-impact-of-technology-on-labor-markets.htm
2 Mar. 15, 18
