RISE OF THE ROBOTS TECHNOLOGY AND THE THREAT OF A JOBLESS FUTURE
Author: Martin Ford
Publisher: Basic Books
Pages: 334
Price: $28.99
In the late 20th century, while the blue-collar working class gave way to the forces of globalisation and automation, the educated elite looked on with benign condescension. Too bad for those people whose jobs were mindless enough to be taken over by third world teenagers or, more humiliatingly, machines. The solution, pretty much agreed upon across the political spectrum, was education. Americans had to become intellectually nimble enough to keep ahead of the job-destroying trends unleashed by technology, both robotisation and the telecommunication systems that make outsourcing possible. Anyone who wanted a spot in the middle class would have to possess a college degree - as well as flexibility, creativity and a continually upgraded skill set.
But, as Martin Ford documents in Rise of the Robots, the job-eating maw of technology now threatens even the nimblest and most expensively educated. Lawyers, radiologists and software designers, among others, have seen their work evaporate to India or China. Tasks that would seem to require a distinctively human capacity for nuance are increasingly assigned to algorithms, like the ones currently being introduced to grade essays on college exams. Particularly terrifying to me, computer programs can now write clear, publishable articles, and, as Ford reports, Wired magazine quotes an expert's prediction that within about a decade 90 percent of news articles will be computer-generated.
It's impossible to read Rise of the Robots - for review anyway - without thinking about how the business of book reviewing could itself be automated and possibly improved by computers. First, the job of "close reading" now commonly undertaken with Post-its and a felt-tip red pen, will be handed off to a scanner that will instantly note all recurring words, phrases and themes. Next, where a human reviewer racks her brain for social and historical context, the review-bot will send algorithms out into the ether to scan every other book by the author as well as every other book or article on the subject. Finally, all this information will be synthesised with more fairness and erudition than any wet, carbon-based thinking apparatus could muster. Most of this could be achieved today, though, as Ford notes, if you want more creativity and self-reflexivity from your review-bot, you may have to wait until 2050.
This is both a humbling book and, in the best sense, a humble one. Ford, a software entrepreneur who both understands the technology and has made a thorough study of its economic consequences, never succumbs to the obvious temptation to overdramatise or exaggerate. In fact, he has little to say about one of the most ominous arenas for automation - the military, where not only are pilots being replaced by drones, but robots like the ones that now defuse bombs are being readied for deployment as infantry. Nor does Ford venture much into the spectacular possibilities being opened up by wearable medical devices, which can already monitor just about any kind of biometric data that can be collected in an ICU Human health workers may eventually be cut out of the loop, as tiny devices to sense blood glucose levels, for example, learn how to signal other tiny implanted devices to release insulin.
But Rise of the Robots doesn't need any more examples; the human consequences of robotisation are already upon us, and skillfully chronicled here. Although the unemployment rate has fallen to officially acceptable levels, long-term unemployment persists, and underemployment - part-time jobs when full-time jobs are needed, or jobs that do not reflect a worker's education - is on the rise. College-educated people often flounder for years after graduation, finding temp jobs and permanent roommates. Adults of both sexes are drifting out of the work force in despair. All of this has happened by choice, though not the choice of the average citizen and worker. In the wake of the recession, Ford writes, many companies decided that "ever-advancing information technology" allows them to operate successfully without rehiring the people they had laid off. And there should be no doubt that technology is advancing in the direction of full unemployment.
Ford offers little hope that emerging technologies will eventually generate new forms of employment, in the way that blacksmiths yielded to autoworkers in the early 20th century. He predicts that new industries will "rarely, if ever, be highly labour-intensive," pointing to companies like YouTube and Instagram, which are characterised by "tiny workforces and huge valuations and revenues." On another front, 3-D printing is poised to make a mockery of manufacturing as we knew it. Truck driving may survive for a while - at least until self-driving vehicles start rolling out of Detroit or, perhaps, San Jose.
Author: Martin Ford
Publisher: Basic Books
Pages: 334
Price: $28.99
In the late 20th century, while the blue-collar working class gave way to the forces of globalisation and automation, the educated elite looked on with benign condescension. Too bad for those people whose jobs were mindless enough to be taken over by third world teenagers or, more humiliatingly, machines. The solution, pretty much agreed upon across the political spectrum, was education. Americans had to become intellectually nimble enough to keep ahead of the job-destroying trends unleashed by technology, both robotisation and the telecommunication systems that make outsourcing possible. Anyone who wanted a spot in the middle class would have to possess a college degree - as well as flexibility, creativity and a continually upgraded skill set.
But, as Martin Ford documents in Rise of the Robots, the job-eating maw of technology now threatens even the nimblest and most expensively educated. Lawyers, radiologists and software designers, among others, have seen their work evaporate to India or China. Tasks that would seem to require a distinctively human capacity for nuance are increasingly assigned to algorithms, like the ones currently being introduced to grade essays on college exams. Particularly terrifying to me, computer programs can now write clear, publishable articles, and, as Ford reports, Wired magazine quotes an expert's prediction that within about a decade 90 percent of news articles will be computer-generated.
It's impossible to read Rise of the Robots - for review anyway - without thinking about how the business of book reviewing could itself be automated and possibly improved by computers. First, the job of "close reading" now commonly undertaken with Post-its and a felt-tip red pen, will be handed off to a scanner that will instantly note all recurring words, phrases and themes. Next, where a human reviewer racks her brain for social and historical context, the review-bot will send algorithms out into the ether to scan every other book by the author as well as every other book or article on the subject. Finally, all this information will be synthesised with more fairness and erudition than any wet, carbon-based thinking apparatus could muster. Most of this could be achieved today, though, as Ford notes, if you want more creativity and self-reflexivity from your review-bot, you may have to wait until 2050.
This is both a humbling book and, in the best sense, a humble one. Ford, a software entrepreneur who both understands the technology and has made a thorough study of its economic consequences, never succumbs to the obvious temptation to overdramatise or exaggerate. In fact, he has little to say about one of the most ominous arenas for automation - the military, where not only are pilots being replaced by drones, but robots like the ones that now defuse bombs are being readied for deployment as infantry. Nor does Ford venture much into the spectacular possibilities being opened up by wearable medical devices, which can already monitor just about any kind of biometric data that can be collected in an ICU Human health workers may eventually be cut out of the loop, as tiny devices to sense blood glucose levels, for example, learn how to signal other tiny implanted devices to release insulin.
But Rise of the Robots doesn't need any more examples; the human consequences of robotisation are already upon us, and skillfully chronicled here. Although the unemployment rate has fallen to officially acceptable levels, long-term unemployment persists, and underemployment - part-time jobs when full-time jobs are needed, or jobs that do not reflect a worker's education - is on the rise. College-educated people often flounder for years after graduation, finding temp jobs and permanent roommates. Adults of both sexes are drifting out of the work force in despair. All of this has happened by choice, though not the choice of the average citizen and worker. In the wake of the recession, Ford writes, many companies decided that "ever-advancing information technology" allows them to operate successfully without rehiring the people they had laid off. And there should be no doubt that technology is advancing in the direction of full unemployment.
Ford offers little hope that emerging technologies will eventually generate new forms of employment, in the way that blacksmiths yielded to autoworkers in the early 20th century. He predicts that new industries will "rarely, if ever, be highly labour-intensive," pointing to companies like YouTube and Instagram, which are characterised by "tiny workforces and huge valuations and revenues." On another front, 3-D printing is poised to make a mockery of manufacturing as we knew it. Truck driving may survive for a while - at least until self-driving vehicles start rolling out of Detroit or, perhaps, San Jose.
© 2015 The New York Times