Will robots steal your jobs?

 

There are different sorts of robots available. First category are educational robots like Lego Mindstorms and research robots like line following robots. These device are used for teaching Artificial Intelligence at the university, and they are used by researchers as a testbed for implementing new algorithm. It is unlikely that these robot will replace human workers because the tasks they are solving are not done by humans. Even if a line following robot is able to master the par curs this won't have any effects to the global economy.

The second category of robots are working quite different. Industrial robots and especially robots at the assembly line are created with the purpose to increase the productivity. The idea of a packaging robot who puts food into a box is, to replace human workers who have the task in the past. These robots can replace human workers and they will influence the global economy.

The reason is not located in the robots itself or the software they are using but it has to do with how the economy is working. What most companies are doing is to mass produce goods like clothes, food, and other products. For example the idea behind a pizza making factory is to create each day 100k pizzas and freeze them at -20 degree. Then the packages are transportet with trucks to the end customer. That means, the economy is about mass production and mass shipment. If robots are utilized to improve these tasks, then the technology will replace human workers.

Or let me explain it the situation from a different perspective. A pizza making factory has no demand for a robot who can navigate in a maze. Because there is maze in the factory. What is available during the prozcess is a production line. So the factory has a demand for robots for this purpose. With this idea in mind it is possible to predict at which moment human workers will be replaced by humans. Suppose two robot models are created by the engineers. First one is a robot created for the assembly line to handle large amount of items. And the second robot is an automated truck which can drive by it's own at the highway.

Both robots combined will affect the global economy strongly. The result is that all the human workers are getting replaced by these two robot models and the result is a new situation in which mass automation is available.