Can AI and Robots do your job?
 

With ChatGP and OpenAI threatening to replace many creative professions, replacing artists, writers, etc, and with robots from Boston Dynamics and Tesla's Optimus likely going to replace many simple manual laborers, and with autonomous vehicles and drones likely to replace many driver's, I thought to ask the question and do a poll: Can AI/robots take your job?

On a long enough continuum, all our jobs could be replaced, but I'm thinking on a shorter timeline, how likely will your job be replaced? Maybe it already has been replaced like a robotic machine in a factory or maybe your restaurant is delivering food on a rolling machine, or your store replaced all cashiers with self-checkout machines.

If you are immune from being replaced, let us know where you work and what you do, and why your job can't be replaced.

I'll go first. I'm an ED tech who is in nursing school who is graduating in May. I'm 41 years old, and I could see myself working for another thirty years. In medicine, we have Telemedicine where we consult stroke neurologists and psychiatric services via a portable device that is a Zoom station with a controllable camera on wheels. Hospitals can do remote surgeries using robotic arms controlled by a doctor at distance. AI systems have diagnosed disorders with higher accuracy than doctors. Some hospitals have robot security guards and robots that offer companionship by having conversation with patients. There are robotic devices to put in IVs in the works, so I'm sure many duties in a hospital will go entirely automated (go to school to be an engineer in robotics kids), yet there is a lot that would be hard to replace due to the speed and dexterity. And the big thing, the healthcare industry is soooooo behind the times in terms of technology, and everything requires so much money. Just yesterday I looked up the price to replace a broken Tono pen that measures occular pressures and looks like something that should be $40 at Autozone, no different than an infrared thermometer (cheap plastic), and it is $5k, so I doubt we will see my job being replaced entirely in my lifetime, but I could totally imagine a reduction in the number of nurses and hospital staff.

What about you? Hopefully you are not a DoorDash driver :sigh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU

Yeah, already has happened with the really large companies in my industry. For custom shops like ours it is not feasible. There is not really a poll option that applies to me.

What could I add?

:iono:

There is a large section of small to medium size businesses that can't afford automation even though it already exists in their industry. These businesses exist because their customers are too small to do business with the large fish in the pond.

The poll answers are all a yes or no in absolutes. All for different time periods but still only binary. There is no accommodation for partial replacement/supplementation.
Was this written by a robot?

This was more of a personal question than an industry question or than a question about if technology exists that could replace your job. Like I said, much of my duties could be replaced, but I don't see it happening for myself based on the rate of adoption. Will you be replaced, and if so, when?

You also say a lot of businesses can't afford automation, but you should be more specific. For instance, why did pizza and other restaurants employ delivery drivers, but Chipotle and many McDonalds didn't? How did that change with Doordash, and how many more customers did the restaurant industry gain who lacked drivers? How would delivery services change with drones, and could a small business use a third party service like a drone-based Doordash to deliver their goods without any investment capital?

A mom and pop store with one person behind the cashier desk may not need a self-checkout, but could a future Atlas stock the shelves, run the register/self-scanner and secure the premises, and would that be cheaper than hiring a person to work for a year? Even at minimum wage of $15.5/hour, at 40 hrs/wk that is $32k/year, so a single robot might be cheaper. Boston Dynamic's spot is $75k, but I would expect robots to drop significantly in price making a future robot not only affordable to the average business/person, but a significant savings.

That is a good point, and I considered that when I mentioned a lot of the nursing duties I do could be replaced, so I could see a reduction in staff, but not a replacement.

If a job had five duties with equal time requirements, and one duty couldn't be replaced, then four people out of five would lose their job, and one person would do that one duty. This is like factory work were automation has replaced all but a few jobs that require certain dexterity that machines can't do well, yet. I considered adding a scenario where 50% of more of the duties or people could be automated out of the job, but ultimately, I tried to keep it simple. If someone is in an industry with 4/5 people being replaced then they could just count that as all jobs, unless they think they are better that 80% of their coworkers. In which case, they could make an argument that they won't be replaced because they are the hardest worker and most likely to by that 1/5.

Having all these robots and machines creates the need for engineering jobs, servicing jobs, energy infrastructure, etc, and it frees up the economy for other professions the same way industrial farming freed up the average household from having to farm to feed themselves, so societies could expand into arts, theatre, etc. and other technologies. There would likely be a net loss and a need for a UBI or something, but I can't throw every option into the poll.

For a small custom shop, I don't think I would ever be replaced. They make machines that can do my job from start to finish, but we would be talking 5+ million per machine on average, at least 3 of them, maybe 4. Now granted they only need somebody to load the material into it and it does the rest at a minimum wage, but you also need someone who can repair and calibrate it and program it which is above my pay grade. Unless you are replacing a hundred people at my level it doesn't pencil. We have me, and two shop hands. My customers can't buy 10 of something from a big company who is automated, it's not worth their time. So we exist along with about 4-5 custom shops across North America. This isn't unique among what we do either. I run into this a lot trying to find companies to produce parts for our other product lines.

I grow plants. If I grew a single crop of cannabis or some landscape flower, it’s already happening w automation. I maintain a collection of rare plants at a university and assist w research plants. I also grow at an orchid nursery.

I’m not ignorant enough to pretend I’m irreplaceable or something but the return on investment for a robot in small greenhouses that aren’t producing a crop doesn’t seem likely. Imagine coding ten scenarios for several thousands species and running those in the course of a couple hours. Either the time constraints would eliminate the automation or the requisite infrastructure to necessitate real time decisions would.

I’m betting on redundancy from a societal perspective before being replaced by a goddamn robot.

Yes and no. On the surface, I write code. That can certainly be significantly automated, but providing the right input will still not likely be automated... Much like assembly robots need caretakers...currently need programmers.
But the core of what I do is create and optimize user experience and facilitate getting work done, mentor and coach... At the moment there is no inherent creativity in AI. It takes good input and a large sampling of example to use as reference. I imagine mundane things will become more and more automated. My job as it stands will change. But it won't go away any more than it has by greedy corporates thinking anyone can do user experience...

Where's the option for not yet, but I'm trying really hard to make it possible?

How is that? Do you work for Boston Dynamics?

My buddy is in the same boat. He is a "workforce management" analyst for a large company. His current project is automating his job. He thinks he will be in the next round or two of layoffs.

Nah, Boston Dynamics tries to automate everyone else's job. I'm trying to automate my own job to make it easier to automate their job.