As robots
migrate from science fiction to the real world, their image as killers has also
migrated – but this time the fear is that they will kill off our jobs. The
evidence, however, suggests that their effect will be the exact opposite of
these fears.
One can go
all the way back to the dawn of the industrial revolution and the first manufacturing
machine: the spinning jenny, which began
the automation of weaving. There is one small statistic from that revolution
that is seldom mentioned, says Tom Raftery, global vice president and futurist
for software giants SAP.
“The spinning
jenny was the first mechancial loom,” he said during the recent Saphila
conference at Sun City, where SAP users and developers network and share
information. “There were 7900 spinners and loomers in the United Kingdom at the
time, in 1760. They had riots, but by 1790 the number of spinners and weavers rose
to 320,000, because spinning jennies could make yarn cheaper and better quality
than the manual process.”
In fact,
the riots were provoked not by the fear of machines taking away jobs, as myth
has it, but rather because they brought the price of cotton and cloth crashing
down. But that, too, resulted in a boom rather than the market collapsing, as
had been feared.
“Because of
increased demand as more people could afford to buy manufactured clothes,
economies of scale kicked in, the quality kept increasing, and they needed
supply chains to supply the factories. For that they needed distribution
mechanisms, and that led to more roads, railways, and ultimately the industrial
revolution.”
In the same
way, it is anticipated that, rather than jobs disappearing as a result of the
widespread advent of robots, we will see a process called labour switching.
Raftery
quotes a study by Deloitte, which found that, as organisations embrace and
adopt robotics and AI, they are finding that virtually every job can be
redesigned, thus creating new categories of work.
Deloitte’s 2019
Global Human Capital Trends report asked, “Are jobs going away due to
technology?”
The answer
was mixed but reassuring: “While some may be eliminated, our view is that many
more are changing… only 13 percent
believe automation will eliminate a significant number of positions, far
different from our findings on this score only a few years ago.”
The value
of automation and AI, Deloitte said, “lies not in the ability to replace human
labor with machines, but in augmenting the workforce and enabling human work to
be reframed in terms of problem-solving and the ability to create new knowledge”.
Raftery
pointed to some unexpected results of the growing number of skilled jobs and,
by extension, better-paid young people.
“Employment
in professional services has gone way up, as have numbers of bar staff, and the
number of hairdressers – as we have more money to enjoy ourselves, as we have
more money to improve our appearance.
“New jobs
are being created by technology all the time. How many of your job titles
existed 5 years ago, 10, 15? More than 60% of the global workforce in 1900 was employed
in agriculture and manufacture. Today it is 11%, and we don’t have vast unemployment
in those areas. Robots won’t take our jobs, they will be creating jobs.”
Raftery
pointed to five industries that will be dramatically affected by emerging
technologies like artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, and cloud
computing. These make up the so-called fourth industrial revolution, a phrase
commonly bandied about in South African government circles, but with little
awareness of what it truly represents.
In
healthcare, manufacturing, energy, transportation, and food production, he
said, we can expect to see a decimation of existing jobs – a prospect that the
Government will find somewhat difficult to sell to the labour unions. However,
each of these sectors will see a massive demand for new jobs and skills.
Already, the cybersecurity industry, which in effect has to secure the data of
every one of these sectors, is reporting a desperate shortage of skills, both
in South Africa and globally.
Manufacturing,
seemingly the most boring of all industries, will present us with the most
fascinating opportunities and challenges.
Said
Raftery, “We are seeing a move to 3D printing, to mass customisation, which is
really product-as-a-service. Fiat is building a modular electric car that one
can endlessly customise, down to the battery pack. You can even order an extra
500km of range for the weekend, getting a more expensive battery just for the
weekend when you need it.”
United Parcel Service, an American delivery and supply chain
management company, has grasped one of the big opportunities offered by 3D
printing of products on demand.
“At present
UPS has a huge business storing parts for customers,” said Raftery. “They hold
US$1.8-trillion worth of customer stock in their warehouses. Now they’ve partnered
with SAP to launch a spare parts 3D printing business. They’re going through a certification
process with customers to sign off that their 3D printed parts are as good as the
originals. Then the products will be digitised and put in digital warehouse and
can be sent anywhere in world.”
Some of the
world’s biggest technology manufacturers are getting in on the act.
Last week, HP
Inc formally opened the doors of a massive new 3D Printing and Digital
Manufacturing Centre of Excellence in Barcelona. It provides a large-scale
factory environment to collaborate with customers and partners on digital
manufacturing technologies.
During our
visit to the Centre earlier this year, Nick Lazaridis, president of HP for
Europe, Middle East and Africa, told us that many companies made the mistake of
thinking of the industry in terms of sales of printers and materials.
“If you had
a total monopoly of 3D printing, the market would be worth around $40-billion.
But if you look at the industry that this is going to disrupt, namely
manufacturing, that’s a $12-trillion industry.”
As with
Raftery, however, he predicted that 3D printing will have a massive impact on
distribution, warehousing and energy needs.
“This
smartphone or bottle is being manufactured in a low-cost country. But you have
to build factories, manufacture the products, warehouse them, put them on
planes and boats, warehouse them again, put them on trucks again, before they
arrive on the shelves. That leaves behind a massive carbon footprint.
“When you
talk 3D printing, you can design in Spain or South Africa, you can manufacture
on demand in South Africa, and deliver in 24 hours because it is printed in a
warehouse a few blocks from where you live. You don’t build a hundred thousand
units hoping to sell them; you build on demand.”
Obviously,
robots, 3D printing and every other expression of the fourth industrial
revolution will kill off jobs. But equally obviously, the jobs they create, in
turn, will not only be better jobs, they will also be better for our planet.
- Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief
of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee
