Well, the scenario of any Hollywood sci-fi movie showcases the situation of machines replacing human jobs as well as taking control of the world.
Maybe it’s more like star wars, where machines are working in collaboration with the humans and are more friendly in approach rather than a competitor or enemies.
As per the reports by the Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research, more than 490,000 jobs will be lost in Germany due to more robots and intelligent software being used in the industry. But with digitization, more than 430,000 new jobs are going to be created even for engineers.
As per Thilo Weber from the Association of German Machine and Plant Construction (VDMA), “People are still the focus of production, as conductors of the machines.” He says with 189,400 industrial robots being installed in Germany led to the employment rise not a decline in demand for the people.
According to Matthias Nienhaus, Professor of Drive Technology at the University of Saarland, “Mechanical engineers no longer just work on the workbench. Everyone has to be familiar with computer systems and be able to interpret data.”
As per Barbara Thiel, State Commissioner for Data Protection in Lower Saxony, “The risk for the employee to be completely transparent in front of the boss is increasing.” It is due to effective monitoring of the employees with real-time analytics programs.
Thilo Weber from the VDMA says: “It is important to define exactly which data a machine should record and pass on in production.”
The worry with Industry 4.0 is about the network failures such as WLAN failures. Then? Normally with the use of zoom in your laptop and your WLAN suddenly lost then you know where you stand with your internet connection but that’s not with industry 4.0.
As per Marco Dadomo from the Association of German Engineers, “Companies today protect themselves so well in terms of IT that it doesn’t happen that something fails and then nothing works at all.”
Even the problem of hackers are also on the rise and poses a great risk for small companies or another financial institute.
If you see, machines may be replacing human jobs but ethically if humans lost their financial means or earnings, there will be an imbalance in the way society is shaped. If you observe the current pandemic scenarios, people on job loss or not being able to get hired due to recession creates an economical imbalance in the structure.
Moreover, if you don’t have the means to earn then how will you spend? When there is no spending, how the companies will make profits or selling their any kind of products. If the economical structure is sized down then so do the savings and spending habits and the circulation of the money will get jeopardized.
A future without a workforce and only robots seem like the only way is to buy a robot who can work for you in the company and you can make living out of it. Or hire a robot on a rent basis? Maybe that’s what 2050 stands for us.
Source: Zeit