Are computers going to take our jobs?

In 1997 an IBM supercomputer called "Deep Blue" beat the world's best Chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov in a shocking defeat. It was the first time a computer had unequivocally conquered humans in what was thought to be too difficult a task for a computer to master. However, it was just a matter of sheer processing power - once the technology had advanced far enough, it was destined to happen.

For the next challenge IBM set themselves something far more difficult. The popular game show Jeopardy asks very cryptic questions and it's much more challenging for a computer to figure out. So they build a supercomputer called "Watson" - named after IBM's founder, able to answer questions in natural language. To do this, they taught it to Learn. Watson went on to beat the two best Jeopardy player of all time, and not just beat them - it wiped the floor with them.

This was the birth of the first real usable Artificial Intelligence, and IBM has gone on to build it into a Multi Billion Dollar product. It's possibilities are wide but for now they are tackling the medical field. Doctors struggle to keep up with the thousands of papers published but Watson can read them all. So much so that it can now detect cancer better than doctors. Can you imagine the future possibilities of such a technology?

Robotics have also come on massively in the last few years. Since Google bought Boston Dynamics and they have come a long long way with some pretty incredible robots that are even humanoid in form which are showing great promise for the future, mainly for military use but the possibilities are endless.

However they look more like Terminator than a worker, so then there is Baxter - the workforce multiplier. Baxter It has a friendly face and you can teach him to do anything with his big long arms. Some robots like Baxter are actually able to learn for themselves - much like we do as children. Baxter costs $22,000 - around the same as a year's salary for a basic worker, but Baxter works 24 hours without a break, does not complain, does not join unions - you can see why companies are going to replace thousands of workers with Robots...

Ai's don't have to be a room sized supercomputers available only to big organisations, we are now seeing Chatbots pop up all over the place that do much the same thing. We already use Siri and Google Now considerably, but now Amazon are even in the game with the Echo! I've just bought one myself and it's brilliant. It's a voice assistant paired with a speaker that sits in your house and you can talk to it to find information like the weather, traffic or sports scores, it will play music from Spotify, and it can even do things like control the lights & heating, order an Uber and even Pizza! Google now have their own version with Google Home, and Microsoft are adapting it directly into the PC from the lock screen. So the competition in the market is heating up and I really think the whole Home Automation is going to get absolutely huge in the next few years.

The main point is we can now for the first time interact with computers like a human, it may be rudimentary but just look how fast this technology is advancing. 5 years ago Google had a very basic self driving car, and now Elon Musk has demo'd a Tesla can drive 100% on its own - on all types of road. It will be standard on his cars within just a few years. Now that is progress.

Take this progress into the AI world with better natural language processing, big data on a truly massive scale - and the right attention from the right companies, and you'll soon have an AI that can talk to you like a person and answer questions on its huge volume of information. This can fairly easily take the job of a basic customer service or tech support person. I called up my cable TV company last week to get something fixed and I was simply talked through the menus to a fix they have probably dealt with 10 times that week. This type of thing will be easily done by an IA in a few years from now. With companies under increasing pressure to cut costs and improve service - once the technology is there it will be a no brainer for companies - and bad news for us. Couple this with Robots - and what chance do we have?

The truth is that robots like Baxter and AI's like Watson are going to take a lot of jobs away from us mere mortals. Some reports say that Robots will take 6% of jobs by 2021, and possibly up to 50% within the next 30 years: Jobs most likely to go are monotonous manual labour, factory workers, book keepers, customer service, technical support, telemarketers, basic accountancy and paralegals - computers will be able to do it far better, cheaper and way faster than we ever can. And if your job involved driving, you are really in trouble! But that's a topic for another article...

People may not believe that this will happen soon - but it's already happening! Go into a big supermarket and there are less cashiers and more automated tills. Amazon already have an army or robots moving stock in their warehouse. Bots are now replacing journalists in writing simple market reports and they are doing a great job! The list goes on.

So what now? What happens next? Are we all doomed? Well, there are two schools of thought:

Ray Kurzweil is a brilliant Futurist and currently head of engineering at Google. He's not scared. He thinks all this new technology will create many new jobs. Just think of how many jobs there are now that did not exist 10 years ago? Social Media Managers, SEO specialists, Bloggers & Vloggers, Big Data Engineers, Mobile App developers and even Drone Pilots! So as the robots come to take the more boring and mundane jobs, better more stills jobs will be available - a win for us all! We'll have better jobs and the robots will do the boring stuff. I for one can't wait for my robot that can cook, clean and do the ironing!

Others however are not so optimistic. Some think that the robots are going to take so many jobs so quickly, there will be unemployment on a massive scale never seen before - so much so that unless they want mass protests and riots, the government will have to step in, and provide a "Universal Basic Income". This is where every single person is given money every month no matter what your circumstances. Enough to cover housing, food, basic necessities. After that you are on your own but you can then go and do extra work or start a small business. Experts think that if you free a person from the need to cover the basics, creativity will be unleashed like never before and it will be the greatest thing for humanity and to tackle inequality.

Either way we have a very interesting future ahead of us. Computers are coming to take our jobs - at least some of them - but they are also going to create more better jobs hopefully it will mean better things for all of us. Technology is one of the new things that consistently make our lives better and easier, but if you work in one of the fields that is destined to be taken over by a robot, you may want to consider a career change sooner rather than later...

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