The driverless cars have not reached the stage of mass convenience. Not yet, at least. Nevertheless, they remain a hot topic, and there isn’t another week without supplementary information on their performance, regulatory state, technical improvements and so on. Only this time it isn’t about their speed, automated pilot software or futuristic design. It is about the way driverless cars will affect human jobs.
Business Insider featured a piece on the way driverless cars’ adoption would reshape the future. Their source is Thomas Frey, a think tank director and renowned futurist. Automation will cause a multitude of jobs to disappear, he claims. The digital revolution will disrupt society as we know it.
Is this the only possible outcome? Or is this kind of prediction a bit exaggerated? We asked around to see how people react to this projection – and here’s what we could make out of it.
There have been other economical revolutions before…
One thing is clear. People would rather get on with their busy lives than think about future unpleasant things. When talking about automation, some refuted the idea altogether. Their best reaction was in the area of “let’s wait and see” and “why talk now about such unpleasant/far away perspectives”. Not the greatest fans of this type of future then. Granted, they have their reasons. Most of these reactions originated from those who perform easily automat-able activities for a living.
There were others who cleverly pointed out that economical revolutions took place in the history of humanity before. And yet here we are, still a society, up and standing. Without going into details like how functional the modern society really is, their argument is valid. At least at first sight.
One of the most poignant economical revolution from the past is the industrial revolution. Many were out of their previous jobs. People were scared. There were mass protests – even though in those times the media did not cover them with the amplitude of today. The population shift highly disrupted the way humans used to live, dwell and interact among themselves up to those times.
Mapping out the industrial revolution
As with any global phenomenon, the process was huge. Perhaps we cannot even fathom the complexity of the changes and the way they affected people, the society and its progress. In an effort of simplification, what happened was that industrial machines took over the work previously performed by hand. This allowed a huge increase of production. It also restructured the necessary personnel scheme in factories and agriculture. Countless workers lost their jobs. Others found their talent in mastering the machines. The massive production of goods led to an increase of access towards these goods. Suddenly, there were more of the same things on the market. The prices dropped, more people could afford certain merchandise. Of course, as long as they found new means of earning their living in this new world.
Long story short, the vast workforce displacement induced by the new machines found its purpose by extending the human work into completely new areas. For example, by building railways new areas became accessible. Mining for resources in those areas, expanding into new markets, building housing facilities for all those who moved into these new places – all generated new jobs. It was then that the urban areas began growing and growing, subsequently becoming the over inflated human dwelling centers that we know in our days.
What tipped the population and job crisis back in the 19th century?
What tipped the machines-taking-over-jobs crisis was the expansion into new types of activities previously inaccessible. In addition, a whole new “industry” emerged for the purpose of providing for the new-generation workers. As they had little time to provide for themselves, they gradually dropped out of the traditional means of producing/maintaining their own clothes, furniture or food. What was home-made at some point became industrialized. The number of jobs for humans may have dropped per factory, due to machines, yet the number of factories grew exponentially and covered for most of the losses.
Of course, this did not happen over night. On the other hand, there was enough potential at that time for such an expansion. It came with a price, of course. Pollution – which was not as highly criticized back then as it is now, and consumerism, which was necessary to keep things rolling.
Back to the driverless cars – jobs relationship
As we have shown above, besides matters such as “where are we heading” or “what is our purpose as a society” often come other more immediately pressing issues. The industrial revolution finally agreed with humans because allegedly more jobs were created than lost. The people just had to go through a massive re-qualification process. There were also losses, of course. But when the dust settled, there were also valid means of going on with an acceptable existence.
To go back to our starting point, driverless cars are perhaps just one tiny part of the digital revolution process. Governments are starting to introduce pilot projects which should support autonomous cars and help getting them on the streets. Although the fear of mass unemployment may have stalled the global adoption of some already-available technologies, there are people who push for progress. Their efforts are starting to permeate the public tech landscape.
We have approached in another article the likelihood of intelligent machines actually taking over activities on a large scale – at this particular moment. Robots are expensive and often fail at this point, but they are coming on strong. Those who worry about a fair social safety net for the humans who will stand the negative effects of automation might be closer to the truth than we want to believe.
Just see here the way robotics revolution is shaping up, on our streets, in agriculture, in factories and companies. Think of the huge amount of R&D investment that is backing up this process for decades now. It is bound to come to fruition sooner or later – and we will have to face the consequences of a huge societal disruption, if unprepared.
What could tip the digital revolution?
This is actually a good question. Meaning we are not prompting any answer, nor did we strive to speculate on any possible one. By “tip the digital revolution” we mean “tip the foreseeable risks”. The way expansion in numbers and in new territories helped re-balance job availability back in the days of the industrial revolution, there must be a new angle now, too. Something that would guide the professionals or unqualified workers of our times into a viable way of earning their lives.
While going around in our driverless cars, eating the factory-processed food and living in smart houses, what will the people of tomorrow put their minds (and bodies) to?
