You know the sides of the argument by now: on the one hand, robots may take over so many human jobs that people will have no work to do. On the other hand, increasing automation will give humans better and more satisfying jobs.
The trouble is, it’s very hard to predict which jobs will still be around in the future. How can you — or your kids — decide what kind of job training makes sense when you aren’t sure which jobs will be snapped up by machines and which will still be available to humans?
A new system
A team of researchers have come up with a new algorithm for determining which jobs are most at risk. You can visit their calculator and ask about the job you have in mind. You will very quickly get the answer in the form of the percentage of likelihood that the job will be replaced by automation soon.
Machinists have a greater than 50% chance of being replaced. Models have a 75% chance. Neuropsychologists, on the other hand, have a low chance of losing their jobs to robots.
The calculator includes a very wide range of professions. All in all, 1,000 different jobs were included.
How do they know?
This group is not the first to come up with lists of higher and lower levels of risk for having jobs taken over by robots.
However, they claim to be the first systematic study. They started out with existing resources that delineate the skills and requirements for jobs and those for robotic tasks. They mapped one to the other, thus including robots as well as software.
The range runs from .43 to .78, so nobody is either completely safe nor completely doomed.
Meat packers are all the way over in the red zone, with a 78% chance of giving up their jobs to robots. Physicists are in the green, but most jobs we checked were solidly in the yellow.
Not to worry. Each job comes with three more-resilient options. For example, if you are a court clerk, you could consider becoming a physicist or a mathematician.
These are the recommendations for drama teachers looking for a more resilient option, too. Also for industrial engineers. We’re not convinced that the switch from drama teacher to physicist is a no-brainer.
While you think about it, though, you can call on us whenever you need service and support for your Rexroth industrial automation systems.