In which sector are robots already present? In which area can an artificial intelligence solution be introduced quickly?
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Since 2019 we can go to restaurants in Budapest (of course if the Covid situation allows it) where humanoid robots assist the staff. They serve, entertain, and give information in 30 languages. While these are still rare in Hungary, trends show that robots appear more and more often in workplaces. In the paragraphs below we will review the AI’s position in a few sectors of the labor market.
Data Collection, Administration, Customer Service
Since AI performs the same tasks as the human workforce, only faster, cheaper, and with no mistakes, no surprise, this was a natural replacement for data collection and the simple administrative positions. Chatbots do simpler tasks such as changing a billing address or sending automatic messages. In customer relations, the AI that does these tasks are more developed, sometimes they are even capable of having a dialogue, such as Vodafone’s TOBi. This way the employee can allocate more time for higher-level, more complex tasks.
Driving a Vehicle
In 2017, the world's first fully self-driving train went into service in Western Australia; it dashed through the landscape without an engine driver. The Rio Tinto completed 1 million km up till 2018.
With self-driving cars gaining territory, taxi and Uber drivers will be less in demand in the foreseeable future. For instance, Domino’s Pizza is already testing its self-driving cars for food delivery in several cities around the world. Besides, In 2018 Waymo began commercializing its self-driving cars, and more and more companies would like to expand their portfolio in this direction. However, there are not enough laws and regulations in place to cover all of this activity.
Physical Work
According to data from the International Federation of Robotics - besides the sales of industrial robots that have been on the market for decades, - the sales of service robots have increased as well. The first collaborative robot, which is capable of working together with people appeared on Stihl’s production line. There are more and more automated tasks on construction sites, warehouses or on the fields, however, the main advantage of the human workforce is dexterity. Currently, robots undertake easy automatic jobs, and humans make decisions. The objective is that the AI implemented in the production processes respond to real-time problems with minimal human intervention.
Journalism
The Washington Post’s newsagent robot called Heliograf reported from the Summer Olympics of Rio, but an AI’s research work can be useful in etiological journalism as well. (mainly in data search, browsing statistics, finding patterns.) Later they will be able to help journalists with writing more personal stories based on their knowledge, targeting the articles based on location, age or reading level. The collaboration between humans and AI could lead to broader accessibility. However, according to different studies, jobs that require personal, human relations will persist.
Music, Arts
An AI is capable of generating simpler melodies (ex. For weddings) and visual content for illustration after setting certain parameters. By this time, many musical software programs use AI to compose music. In short, AI can increase access to writing music, make work processes easier, and even give inspiration to people for composing the next hit, see Amper Music. Christie’s was the first auction house to sell a painting that was made by an AI… for $432.000.
Law
Given that legal experts’ job includes the task of filtering out useful information from thousands of pages of text, using the help of an AI can make their life easier and more specific by supporting them in data collection and processing, and drawing up contracts. There will be fewer positions for entry-level or junior employees in the long run, but coworkers will be able to focus more on complex tasks, such as combining law and IT, for example. In the United States, the study that showed that robots beat the 20 best legal experts, turned out to be an important milestone.
Financial Analysis
According to Citigroup, by the end of the next decade, AI will be performing 30 % of tasks in the banking sector. Generally speaking, employees who can connect their knowledge in finance with IT and mathematics will have an advantage. In conclusion, in the field of banking services built on customer fidelity and personalized services, AI seems invincible.
Healthcare
AI has become widespread in the field of medicine because it is more efficient and safer. Robots operate, propose therapies for cancer, or algorithms diagnose diseases. Nevertheless, in medicine human workforce will always be present: The doctor will have to decide if the treatment proposed by the AI is safe and suitable for the patient, how it will affect the patient’s life and family. The role of an AI might be to filter out useful information from a great many data, that could otherwise remain invisible.
Gardening – My Favorite Subject
Gardening is a hobby of mine, so naturally gardening robots won’t be left out (however I still do my gardening with my own hands?). I, on the other hand, recognize, that agricultural robots take over a lot of physical effort from farmers. SWEEPER, for instance, developed for pepper picking, can come in handy in greenhouses. It scans the plants with its sensors and using the visual examples in its memory determines which vegetables are ripe and it only picks those. It saves leaves and stems even in huge areas that are the size of a warehouse.
Naïo Technologies developed various weeding machines for smallholder farmers that work efficiently on - 2.5-25 acre lands. The machines baptized Oz, Dino and Ted were made to cultivate industrial crops, vegetable gardens and vineyards.
The World Economic Forum brings attention to the prospect of workplaces doubling in the next decade with robots appearing in the labor market.
Are you curious to know if your position is not in danger because of the robots? I recommend Will Robots Take My Job? A website revised by Business Insider, Mashable and Fortune!
Image sources:
https://jozsefvaros.hu/hir/6550/robotpincer-egy-jozsefvarosi-kavezoban
https://www.vodafone.co.uk/help-and-information/introducing-tobi
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