DailyDirt: Stop That Robot, It Stole My Job!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The industrial revolution has had obvious benefits to our civilization, but it didn't happen without significant costs. A century ago, about a third of employees in the US worked on a farm, and now less than 2% of US workers produce far more food. For the most part, the would-be farmers among us aren't sitting around unemployed; we've been educated to work on other things, pursuing some careers that were unimaginable just decades ago. Here are just a few links on robots doing work that might displace some human labor.

• In Kinshasa, two giant robot traffic cops serve as humanoid traffic lights to direct vehicles and pedestrians... and receive more respect than the flesh-and-blood traffic cops that did the same job previously in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. These robot cops are solar powered and equipped with cameras that can record events (so scofflaws will be sent tickets). [url]
• Technological disruption of the labor market is a growing trend, and a study from Oxford University estimated that 47% of jobs today could be automated in the next couple decades. Governments may find it difficult to address the resulting displaced human labor, but it's an issue that is only going to become more prevalent -- so we'd better start finding solutions soon. [url]
• Sgt. Star is a chatbot for the US Army, and it acts as an automated Army recruiter by answering *any* questions that potential enlistees might have. It's especially good for answering questions that a person might be too embarrassed to ask a real human recruiter, but it's obviously not a perfect replacement. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: army recruiter, automation, chat bot, human labor, luddites, robotics, robots
Companies: us army