Are Jobs Actually Being Replaced With Automated Robots?
In the week of the 13th of September, the Japanese company called “Telexistence” began running trials of piloted robots working in general stores. Starting in local “FamilyMarts” and “Lawson” stores, they are testing piloted robots as shelf stockers. FamilyMart announced that they intended to take on multiple of these robots by 2022, in up to 20 of its different locations. Currently, Japan has millions of open job spots but not enough people to fill them, thus the concept of automated workers began to make its move towards reality. With the robots, the article states, “Although that could replace the jobs of some 16 million people, the report said, it would still leave the country short of 1.5 million workers.” (Lewis 16) which is a huge number. Some people view this as potentially a negative thing as the possibility of jobs occupied with robotic workers and population increasing could eventually start actively taking jobs from working citizens. As well, it would also make it so that businesses could cut out paying workers and just generate active workers that don’t require time off and are there 24/7.
The robots themselves are currently piloted by humans from a distance. They do this by having a human utilize a VR(Virtual Reality) headset and gloves to manipulate the robot from afar. But the company is recording the movements and actions taken by the pilots to generate AI's(Artificial Intelligence) to pilot the robots in a humanlike manner. Meaning going forward the robots will not even generate a job as a human pilot. The robots have a basic wheeled bottom and arms that have three finger-like appendages, and at maximum can stretch up to 7 feet tall. Telexistence also
announced that they are not going to sell the robots to companies but simply give them to the stores as long as they pay a fee. To which the fee was not stated, but it was said that it may be hiring human workers.
With COVID making jobs more difficult to come about and pushing towards less and less human contact. It has done nothing but push forward the want for automated workers and caused the progress of their development to accelerate. But the robots themselves currently are not as efficient as humans from a physical standpoint, being that they take longer to do basic actions and can only handle certain objects and items. But they are planning to progress this in the future, including the development of an ai that could potentially be more efficient than humans. And due to the adaptability of robots and the openness of human ingenuity, simply working in stores will not be the end of what robotic workers can do. Currently, the robotic workers are just filling in the open jobs that can’t be filled, but once they are all filled what happens beyond that? We won’t know until we get there, and hopefully, it is not as bad as it could be.
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