In September this year, Raymond announced that it's going to cut 10,000 jobs over a period of three years and replace the workforce with robots. This is just one open declaration of how robots are entering the manufacturing sector. Robots already are deployed in many industries like automobile manufacturing. They are being used in surgeries and for carrying out many high precision tasks. Self-driving cars are about to enter the market in the western world. But these are just a beginning.
Technology today is trending towards a massive second generation of industrialization. In the next few decades, we may witness rapid technological advancement, which will make the machinery and gadgets of our present times look like primitive tools. But what will be the outcome of such an advancement? Is it going to be a boon or curse on humanity?
Earlier from the past, machines have always been replacing manual labor, wholly or partially. If ten men were collectively performing a task, introduction of machinery, reduced the manpower requirement to just one person to operate the machine. This is just an example. Case by case if we analyze, machines have always been seizing work from humans, thereby their opportunity to earn a livelihood. Only those who could augment their skills to meet the requirements of the industry were able to sustain their jobs. Today this can be seen across every industrial domain. Unless an individual augments his skills in coherence with the trending technology he is likely to face extinction from market realities. And if machines were once considered a threat to manual labor, robots are going to be a threat to both manual and cognitive labor. Robots could prove themselves better than many humans engaged in a similar work. And when the cost of ownership of robots become more competitive than employing humans, industries would opt for robots. It will not only increase their productivity but also maximize profit retention.
Nevertheless, this trend, in all likelihood, will expose the darker side of capitalism. When the owners of capital (investors and industrialists), start replacing human labor with robots, it will become evident that the whole industrial operation is solely aimed at increasing the profits of the capitalists (a handful of powerful people compared to the vast majority of laborers). Today, they are hiding behind the propaganda of development. And every time a mammoth industry comes up or when an existing industry goes for a major infrastructural expansion, they just say that they want to cater to the needs of the market, create value to consumers and provide employment opportunities to people, etc., although their prime motive is profit. And that's a blunt truth.
Now, with the introduction of robots, the capitalists will start benefiting more. They will witness a steep increase in productivity and a fall in operational costs over a period of time. This will eventually maximize their profits. And all those who would lose their jobs will have to poise themselves to fit into the evolving reality.
Robotics, on the other hand, will become a thriving domain. While men will start making robots, robots will start replacing men in every possible domain. Some of the fictitious scenarios we have seen in sci-fi thrillers may even become realities humans have to confront. Although artificial intelligence may not be able to infuse life into robots, with a self-appending algorithm, robots as machines, may even outwit humans in scripting an algorithm for robots to operate. If today we are amused by the possibility of robotics, tomorrow, there would come a time when we will feel threatened by the same. Industrial civilization is likely to become a victim of its own greed. And these threats are very much real.
What's apparently surging as a labor issue today is an inevitable beginning of a dangerous era of industrialization. If we fail to act today we may draw humanity close to extinction.
External link: Raymond to replace 10,000 jobs with robots in next 3 years