Robots in the workplace: are humans really victims of automation?

The Coronavirus pandemic has left many employees in a vulnerable situation. The shutdown rate has increased exponentially across the planet, due to economic losses in various sectors. With the economic recovery, a new fear seems to be troubling workers: the possibility of having their jobs taken over by robots. However, according to a study carried out by sociologist Eric Dahlin, a professor at Brigham Young University, this should not be a cause for panic. Understand:

Robots in the job market

Automation and the replacement of humans by robots have been discussed for many years. However, recent headlines are pointing to the near future, where there is an imminent replacement of manufacturing by highly intelligent robots. technological. What we saw, according to the research, does not necessarily indicate that. Know more:

What does the study say?

Published in the magazine of sociology

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, the study shows that only 14% of workers saw their role completely replaced by machines. It is noteworthy that those who had a change of some function or position due to the introduction of a robot exaggerate by about three times the effect of robots on unemployment.

How was the study carried out?

Dahlin surveyed 2,000 workers about their perceptions of job losses to machines. To do so, they were asked what percentage of employees have lost their jobs to robots. After that, they were separated into 2 groups: the first group corresponds to employees who had no functions replaced by robots and the second group corresponds to employees whose functions were partially or totally replaced by robots.

And what are the results?

People in the first group (who were not replaced by robots) stated that, on average, 29% of jobs were replaced by robots. In turn, people in the second group (about 14% of the 2,000 respondents) estimated that 47% of all jobs have been replaced by robots.

Thus, those who did not have functions transferred to machines overestimated the power of robots to “steal” jobs by 2x, and those who had functions replaced overestimated the result by about 3x.

Robots as helpers

According to conclusions drawn from the study, robots are more objects that will help than they will be able to completely replace human work. In this way, for example, it is possible for a robot to sweep the environment while people in the cleaning sector deal with shelves or objects that need greater care.