Accountants and journalists: whom robots may soon replace

In May 2020, Microsoft laid off employees of the editorial offices of Microsoft News and MSN services. Instead, news and advertising will be handled by special algorithms. Under the reduction were dozens of people in the US and the UK. It seems that the future is much closer than we thought: even journalists can be replaced by robots, not to mention more primitive work. Who is next? About this – the next issue of the YouTube channel “Industry 4.0” with Nikolai Dubinin.

Where are robots already being used?

When talking about work for robots, they often use the 4D formula: Dull, Dirty, Dangerous, Dear – routine, dirty, dangerous and expensive. It was these activities that robots “mastered” in the first place. Today robots-couriers, loaders, stackers are successfully working.

In the US, they are used for washing dishes, making hamburgers and pizza. China already has police robots. We recently have robots that make coffee.

In Amazon warehouses, robots are massively replacing ordinary workers:

And in Walmart supermarkets – merchandisers:

In the next ten years, they can replace more than 7 million employees in retail.

But already today, robots have come close to those professions that were considered exclusively human. For example, surgical robots that work much more accurately and accurately, penetrating even into thin vessels and leaving almost no holes. Or the robot lawyer from this Vice video who found a mistake in the contract, while an experienced human lawyer missed it.

According to McKinsey’s forecast, such robots will replace 22% of lawyers and 35% of assistants.

And this is just the beginning.

Alisa Konyukhovskaya, Executive Director of the National Association of Robotics Market Participants:

And even more than that: in large corporations – including the same Amazon – robots and AI not only work side by side with people, but also monitor their effectiveness. Special algorithms evaluate how well this or that employee works and even calculate his salary based on the results. The company saves up to $22 million a year at each warehouse, but the employees themselves are unhappy and even go on strike against replacing them with robots:

Who’s next?

The RANEPA claims that by 2030, robots can take away almost half of our country’s jobs. 20 million people will be at risk. According to the Internet Initiatives Development Fund, up to 6 million people will be laid off in the country in the next ten years. Another 25 million will have to retrain to keep their jobs.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts 75 million job losses by 2022. Accountants, notaries, cashiers, couriers, security guards, drivers, secretaries, packers, bank employees, estimators, caretakers in museums, proofreaders, decoders and call center operators will fall under the knife.

Automation in retail will lead to the disappearance of cashiers, sellers, administrators of the trading floor and security guards. According to HeadHunter, in 2019, cashier vacancies decreased by 17,7%. At Superjob, there were two times less of them.

Online platforms are replacing travel agents, realtors, marriage agents and other managers who match products and services on demand.

Robots are actively mastering intellectual and even creative professions. For example, special services are already replacing live translators.

We already talked about AI at Microsoft at the beginning. But similar algorithms are already being used by Forbes and the Associated Press to write business and sports news. Next in line are copywriters, radio and TV presenters, bloggers and showmen.

Aliona Paul – blogger and model digital avatar:

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The Atlas of Emerging Jobs project has collected those that will disappear before 2030. It seems that none of us is immune from losing a job in the near future. But there is also good news. First, robots are far from being able to do everything.

What can’t robots do?

First of all, robots do not cope well with complex tasks where there are many variables. Simply put, they do not know how to improvise if something goes wrong, but the program did not provide for this.

Alisa Konyukhovskaya:

A vivid example is the sensational Japanese hotel with robots: in the end, half of them had to be fired. It turned out that automated assistants cannot tell about the sights, mistake snoring for a request for help, and are not even able to make copies of documents at the reception.

The second weak point is emotions, more precisely, emotional intelligence. For example, companion robots like Kiki or Zora can entertain, comfort, and support when asked. But they have not yet learned to recognize emotions without words – that is, to show real empathy.

Of course, robots have an undeniable advantage: they quickly learn new skills using machine learning. For example, five years ago AlphaGo could not beat a person in the game of Go, and today it even beats champions.

True, even here everything is not so smooth. Alphabet X moonshot created a universal self-learning robot. It uses cameras and machine learning algorithms to observe the world around it and learn new skills on its own. But for now, all he’s really good at is sorting garbage.

What professions will appear instead

The second good news is that thanks to robots, we will have new professions.

According to the same Future of Jobs 2018 report from WEF, 75 million new jobs will be created instead of 130 million jobs. True, to get them, you need to retrain now.

Andra Kai, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics:

Nobel laureate in economics Christopher Pissarides believes that at least until 2022, the professions of scientists, robotics engineers, CEOs and CEOs, risk managers, university teachers, oil and gas engineers, cybersecurity specialists and database specialists will not disappear.

According to Alisa Konyukhovskaya, a few days are enough to learn and work as a robot operator today. Rostec even released a special robot for teaching students at universities.

WEF believes that those who teach others how to use new technologies and develop them on their own will be the most in demand: specialists in artificial intelligence and mechanical engineering, big data processing (data scientist), experts in process automation.

It is more profitable for companies not just to replace people with robots, but to optimize and measure performance. To automate processes and introduce technologies where they are really needed. For example, according to the Center for Labor and Education Research at the University of California at Berkeley, truck drivers will help drones in difficult areas or remotely repair cars.

What’s next?

Finally, the third good news is that we have a future with robots: we just learn to work together.

Guy Hoffman, Researcher in Human-Robot Interaction, Cornell University:

In the same Amazon, they claim that in return for the laid-off employees, the company has attracted 2012 thousand new ones since 300. And they all work together with the robots, helping them cope where they still can’t.

Andra Kay:

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