Who is Afraid of the Brave New Robotic Future?

By Mark Coeckelbergh

The robots are coming. Not as terminators or Frankensteinian monsters, but as mundane machines that replace jobs and have significant consequences for our economies and societies.

Robots are already transforming our economy and society. Robotics and other automation technologies put people out of work. It has been predicted that these are not just so-called blue-collar jobs but also white-collar ones: with the help of artificial intelligence, more and more jobs are replaced in areas such as banking, accounting, taxes, and administration. The impact of automation is thus much broader than in previous industrial revolutions.

The impact of automation is broader than in previous industrial revolutions.

The pandemic has accelerated this shift. According to a recent McKinsey report, automation has disrupted labor markets and will replace up to 25% more workers than previously estimated. Earlier a World Economic Forum report said that 80% of business leaders increase automation of services, with almost half of them expecting that new technologies will reduce their workforce. The report expects that 85 million jobs will be displaced in the next 5 years. Machines will take over data processing, administrative tasks and routine manual jobs. 

Robots are part of this trend. They are not only to be found in manufacturing but also in warehouses and service jobs that involve contact with customers. As natural language processing technology improves, the latter kind of replacements are likely to increase in the future. Your waiter might soon be a machine (if it is not already).

While undoubtedly automation will also create new jobs (see for example this report from The Economist), it will hit hard on those who will be replaced and create feelings of anxiety and insecurity in others. Moreover, as societies we are hardly prepared for the deep transformations needed to deal with this. Existing social security systems are barely enough to deal with current economic crises, let alone that they are up to coping with the longer-term changes caused by automation. To make things worse: under the influence of neoliberal thinking, many countries in the West have economized public health care systems and social welfare services during the past decades; this renders them even more vulnerable to the highly disruptive changes. 

Some argue for a robot tax and a universal basic income. The idea is to give everyone an income, regardless of their employment status. The budget would come from taxing machines (as opposed to merely human labor now). However, such measures face a lot of resistance from the private sector and are unlikely to be implemented any time soon. In the meantime, the educational system is also unprepared, training for 20th-century skills. And re-skilling does not work for everyone.

The utopian idea that automation will free us from boring and dangerous labor and free up time for leisure and creativity has never been realized.

The mid-term result is likely to be widespread unemployment and growing inequalities, both within societies and globally. Some will benefit from robotics and automation whereas others will lose. The utopian idea that automation will free us from boring and dangerous labor and free up time for leisure and creativity has never been realized. Instead, our societies are on course for a harsh future, at least for the 99%. Instead of having more time, those who are lucky enough to have a job have the feeling that they never had less time than today. And they are afraid to lose their precarious job. Immersed in digital technologies, we are hurried and anxious even in our so-called free time. And being served by a human being, as opposed to a robot, risks to become a luxury only the rich can afford.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Some believe in a future in which humans and machines work together. AI and robotics are then not threats to jobs but join forces and use their complementary strengths to improve performance. Partly this is already happening in industry. Humans are still needed, for example to train machines, and robots and AI can enhance human capabilities. 

Enhancement instead of replacement; that sounds good. And for sure there will be those new jobs. But unless we significantly prepare our economies and societies for the robot revolution that has already begun, we are likely to miss such opportunities – or at least create a world in which the bright future promised by robotics and automation is highly unequally distributed. We urgently need more discussion about the ethics and politics of robotics, AI, and automation.

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Mark Coeckelbergh is Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology at the University of Vienna and author of more than 16 books, including AI Ethics (MIT Press) and The Political Philosophy of AI (Polity Press).  On September 6, his new MIT Press book Robot Ethics will be available: an accessible and concise guide to the ethical questions that arise from our use of industrial robots, robot companions, self-driving cars, and other robotic devices. It is part of the Press’s Essential Knowledge series.