Blog #5

In this day and age, not even highly specialized professions will be safe if robots begin to start replacing human employees. Laborers are clearly certain jobs that will tend to be replaced, as stated in the question, but more surprisingly is the jobs that have significant skill level and require years of schooling. One job that has already been replaced in two hospitals by robots so far is being a pharmacist. It’s been said that in one hospital a machine has filled approximately 350,000 prescriptions without fail. That shows that that will most likely be a job that will slowly be phased out in this century. Another highly skilled job is that of a lawyer, they’re saying that software can now review hundreds of documents much quicker and more efficiently than lawyers and paralegals. Lastly, we’ve already seen technology replace the need for store clerks and bank tellers. ATM’s have reduced the need for bank tellers significantly, and self-serve lines at stores have begun to be extremely popular. A lot of these jobs have already slowly begun to be phased out, and if it continues to develop, will become an exceedingly significant problem. It is said that one robot will be able to replace up to 5000 people doing the same job. The economy wouldn’t be able to support itself; the lower class won’t be able to find jobs because labor has begun to be taken over, but the upper class aren’t protected either. This means that the government will have to support millions of people that will lose their jobs, from all social classes. The economy will end up being dug into an even deeper hole since there will not be the same ratio of consumers to suppliers.