Robots Take Over: Companies To Soon Hand Out The Pink Slip
Much like your beloved pet dogs, robots will soon become a part of your family. But then, these are the good robots that will help with your household chores, tell you jokes and make your life worth living.
On the other hand, there are these evil robots, which will strip you off your so-called “secure” job and make you unemployed for a very long time. In some cases, they already have done so.
According to NBC News, jobs of lawyers, journalists, pharmacists, store clerks and even baby sitters are at stake.
Necktie-Wearing Robot Learns Sidewalk Etiquette – Popular Science https://t.co/vxxn3Yu5Sn #robots
— Robots (@RobotList) June 7, 2016
Walmart,which employs about 2.1 million workers, will soon be replacing stock-checkers with flying drones that can scan miles of shelves in a fraction of the time.
“While a Walmart employee may handle the drone, the technology could ‘potentially’ mean fewer workers would be needed to take stock or replace missing items,” said Lorenzo Lopez, a spokesman for Walmart.
According to Reuters, Walmart will start using drones in six to nine months.
Not just that. Even the support staff standing by the shelves might be replaced, as Walmart is working with a robotics company to develop a shopping cart that helps customers find items on their lists. Moreover, with this new shopping cart, customers at Walmart need not undergo the trouble of pushing a loaded cart across the sprawling store and the parking lot, said a source familiar with Walmart.
“Such carts are an emerging opportunity for robotics companies as brick-and-mortar stores look for innovative ways to match the convenience of Amazon.com Inc. and other online retailers,” said Wendy Roberts, founder and CEO of Five Elements Robotics, according to a report by Bloomberg.
McDonald’s, which has over 1.9 million employees, is ready to replace its human task force with robots.
“If you look at the robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry – it’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries,” the former US chief executive Ed Rensi told FoxBusiness‘ Maria Bartiromo.
Wendy’s too is on the brink of cutting down jobs. Wendy’s President Todd Penegor told Investor’s Business Daily about plans to automate the ordering process in company restaurants. Employees who once took orders from customers will be replaced by self-service kiosks. Mobile ordering and payment apps will also cut down on employee hours, he said.
Recently, Foxconn, a key manufacturing partner for Apple, Google, and Amazon, replaced 60,000 workers with robots.
Telemarketers’ jobs have the highest chance of being automated, according to recent report. Other positions with huge potential for being overtaken by robots are cashiers, tellers and drivers, according to this new NPR interactive, reports Fortune.
#CHINA is using manufacturing #robots because it's getting too expensive to pay people | #productivity #robotics https://t.co/mnrydAphXs
— Timo Nurminiemi (@TimoNurminiemi) June 16, 2016
According to the study, telemarketers have a 99 percent chance of one day being totally replaced by technology, cashiers, tellers and drivers all have over a 97 percent chance at being automated. The job with the lowest shot at being overtaken by robots is mental health and substance abuse social workers. They have a 0.3 percent chance, according to the NPR data. Occupational therapists also rank at 0.3 percent, while dentists, surgeons and nutritionists appear pretty safe at just 0.4 percent, the report said.
Rethink co-founder Ann Whittaker on defining the category of collaborative #robots. https://t.co/8Wt7vAxB1S pic.twitter.com/oysuvGtumD
— Rethink Robotics (@RethinkRobotics) June 14, 2016
However, not everyone who works in a hospital is safe from robots.
Pepper, the humanoid robot created by Softbank can understand human emotions, will be employed as a receptionist in two Belgian hospitals, reports the BBC. This robot has earlier worked in malls and has seen a huge success with the creation, with each batch of 1,000 selling out fast in Japan, BBC said.
According to Recode, Facebook recently started hiring humans to create some specialized content of its own, such as summaries of news stories written by reporters. Many former employees suspect that Facebook’s eventual goal is to replace its human curators with robotic ones.
[Photo by Elise Amendola/ AP Images]
