Robotization and automation have taken over our lives and we didn’t realize it

Today I went out for a while at a store I don’t usually go to, and to my surprise, I didn’t have to interact with any human beings to pay. I am aware that this is not exactly new and, in fact, this is not the first time that I have used an automatic payment system; they have become particularly popular due to the pandemic.

[Matter ya es oficial, Alexa y Google Assistant hablarán con cualquiera de tus dispositivos]

My surprise comes more from the fact that I found something like this in a neighborhood store, where everyone knows each other and it’s not uncommon for the cashier to speak to you by name. That this type of customer agrees to give money to a robot is something I have thought about since I left the establishment.

The robots are going to take our jobs

This is not an isolated case. Thinking about it, there are more and more cases of tasks that, until not so long ago, were the work of one person, but have been automated. And when you realize it’s easy to panic.

There’s been a lot of talk about how robots can steal our jobs, and while it’s a fear more the result of sci-fi movies than reality, in some cases workers have reason to fear for their future jobs. . According to a study published by Brigham University, 14% of workers surveyed say they have been replaced by a robot, a figure that may seem low, but that is precisely the problem.

And it is that respondents who were made redundant said almost half of all workers (47%) were replaced by a robot; this number drops to 29% for workers who have not been laid off. However, the actual figure is closer to 14%. The conclusion of the study is that our perception of robots is exaggerated, especially if we have directly suffered the consequences; even those who weren’t laid off believe that twice as many jobs were lost as those who ended up in the hands of robots (figuratively speaking).

This does not mean that robotization and automation are not a problem; especially if our society does not adapt to these innovations. It’s not about whether robots are going to take our jobs, it’s about when will they do it; even jobs that seemed safe, like those related to art, are under threat due to the popularization of artificial intelligence services capable of creating works in the style of any artist in history. Even the guy with those words could lose his job to a machine learning system that automatically types everything we ask for.

The question we have to ask ourselves is not whether it will happen, it is what are we going to do when this happens. There are those who believe that it can be a good thing for mankind and that we could devote our lives to other things instead of our jobs. Especially since even our house will not be “safe”.

Automation of our lives

And it is that you have probably noticed the boost that the smart home has received in recent months. For the technology sector, the importance of selling us devices that can work on their own is very juicy, so much so that they have been able to leave behind their differences.

The result is Matter, the new standard that will be followed by major IoT manufacturers, allowing all devices to communicate with each other. So you can use Google Home to control a smart light bulb that only has Alexa, or give your iPhone and Android phone access to all the functions of your kitchen appliances.

But home automation goes far beyond turning on the heating just before you get home. The ultimate goal is that we have nothing else to do but enjoy our home, leaving all tasks to automated systems; either with cleaning robots capable of analyzing the level of dirt, or with air fryers that perform recipes by modifying the necessary temperature.

But this is only the beginning. We will soon see robots, the “real ones”, in our homes. Amazon is already experimenting with this, with the launch of the Astro, a small robot that claims to be “our friend”. Although it’s basically just a screen on wheels, the Astro represents what the tech industry sees as the future of home automation: a companion rather than a home worker. And it is that Astro does not have hands, but it has compatibility with Alexa to perform automated functions or simply to keep us company.

Movie-like robots

And if what we want are robots like those in the movies, the good news is that there are already several projects in the works. One, commissioned by the most controversial person in recent months, Elon Musk; The billionaire (every day less because of Twitter) has been advancing a Tesla Bot for a few years, and has already warned that it would replace the automaker’s workers. But in his demonstration, he also showed that he was able to lift boxes and perform daily tasks.

Perhaps it will overtake Xiaomi, which recently presented a humanoid robot, the CyberOne. Although it’s not that futuristic, it can be an advantage for both production and users to accept it in their homes. And it is that the biggest problem of robots is the so-called “strange valley”, a phenomenon that we suffer from when we see that “something” is trying to be human. Xiaomi intends to avoid this with an OLED screen on what the robot’s face would be, but there is still a long way to go in this regard.

These robots already have “hands” with which they are able to delicately grasp objects; therefore, they can be incredibly useful for many people with reduced mobility, for example, or as carers and helpers in the home. It’s not that it’s available to everyone (the cheapest is $100,000), but as always, as technology advances, manufacturing processes will become cheaper.

Will we be happier then, or will we curse the moment we allowed this? Only time will tell.

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