Take the train these days and you will notice a robot cleaner mopping the floor at the station as it moves. The bot has a perpetual smile on its face, is smart enough to avoid collisions with commuters, and cleans quickly and efficiently. Watching the machine work, it is easy to think that robots are well and truly taking over our jobs.
But stay a little longer and you will see its human counterpart coming to programme it to do certain tasks. The human counterpart still cleans too, but he is now freed up to perform more complex duties such as identifying and cleaning high-contact touch points. The bot is not a replacement for the human cleaner; it is a tool that helps the human cleaner work better.
This scenario offers a zoomed-in view of workplaces around the world as the age of artificial intelligence (A.I.) dawns. Discussions on A.I. tend to revolve around the jobs it will destroy or create. The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report estimated that out of the 673 million jobs it studied, 83 million jobs would be wiped out by 2027 – chiefly due to digitalisation and adoption of new technologies. The number is frightening, but the report also states that 69 million jobs will be created. This works out to a net decrease of 14 million jobs, or 2 per cent of current employment.
