Artificial Intelligence Technology in Employment

Artificial intelligence ( AI ) “is technology and a branch of computer science that studies and develops intelligent machines and software”. Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agent”. [1] There are many different uses for Artificial intelligence and the one that I have chosen to research and discuss is the use of Artificial intelligence and the workplace. With all of the advances being made year after year you have to wonder could artificial Intelligence at some point replace employees? How could this happen? Pretty easily actually, if you step back and look at your day to day job, it is very robotic, most of us perform the same tasks day in and day out and it is part of our routine. Who is to say that one day a robot couldn’t be put in that same role and do the same job more efficiently and effectively. Technology has, of course, often disrupted and even destroyed whole industries and employment sectors. In the U.S., the mechanization of agriculture vaporized millions of jobs and led workers to eventually move from farms to factories. Later, manufacturing automation and globalization caused the transition to a service economy. Workers repeatedly adapted by acquiring new skills and migrating to jobs in new industries—but these changes have not altered the fact that most jobs continue to be essentially routine.[2] We see many different opinions on this topic, some would argue that AI technologies have already started to be the norm, automated systems have taken over for the average worker. This technology can have both good and bad effects for employees. Yes we could potentially see less of a need for humans in certain business aspects. We already see wages being driven down because it has become more affordable to automate a job that was once done by someone in a factory or an office. So now not only are we seeing wages of those without college degrees diminish, we now have to worry about potentially being replaced by an automated system. Then on the other hand there have been industries that have been affected positively by Artificial Intelligence technologies. There are several industries that have pursued automation aggressively without reducing overall employment. In U.S. banking, for example, because the increased productivity resulting from automation has been accompanied by a relatively even higher demand for bank services, employment grew by 50 per cent between 1970 and 1980 (Ernest, 1982). [3]. Not all jobs have the capability of being automated roles like teacher and childcare provider that require a human to successfully do the job. The power of man and machine working in unison was at the heart of a speech about intelligence augmentation by Ari Gesher, engineering ambassador with Palantir Technologies, at the recent Economist Technology Frontiers 2013 conference in London. "The idea is to have a very well defined division of labor between the computing machines and the humans," he said, spelling out the complementary skills of men and computers. [4] In closing while AI technology could clearly be the way of the future and we will continue to see employment rates job as we have seen year over year as these systems become more sophisticated. While this transition may be a long while a way it is still something we need to be thinking about and preparing for. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence 2. http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/7/165475-could-artificial-intelligence-create-an-unemployment-crisis/fulltext 3. http://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/OnlinePubs-Nils/General%20Essays/AIMag05-02-002.pdf 4. http://www.zdnet.com/artificial-intelligence-job-killer-or-your-next-boss-7000012404/