None of us are essential…
Prepare yourselves, the day of the robot employee is coming. As rapidly as robots evolve, the idea of what constitutes an employee evolves as well. Consider Marty The Grocery Store Robot, a robotic grocery store assistant know to Stop and Shop (a grocery chain located in the North East United States) customers in the lower. For the time being, Marty is known primarily for being a nuisance to both customers and employees of the company, I believe that will change soon. If there are lessons to be learned from the COVID pandemic and their ensuing lockdowns, one might be employee maintenance. As we’ve seen over the last 18 months, brick and mortar retailers (we’ll include fast food), have been deemed as essential and as such so have their employees. Oftentimes, these are also the very first employees to get sick as well. One of the long term, trickle down effects is the labor shortage we’re currently experiencing around the world.
Robotics will effect every career field, consider these two regular human occupations, both of which are being replaced by robotics.
I have spoken to a few business owners, some believe robotic employees would solve many of their regular labor issues. For instance, the owner of a local auto body shop might pay three people over $150,000 + benefits collectively, to ensure a good paint job consistently. That same owner might see the value in a substantially more costly robotic painter that never gets sick and never makes mistakes. Maybe, the robot is quicker and provides faster service to more customers, recouping the shop owner’s initial investment faster.
How long will McDonalds pay $15 an hour to flip Big Macs? Chains like White Castle and CaliBurger haver already begun transitioning to robots.
What does the future look like for you, where do you sit in what is certainly coming? What do you want to do? What do you look like in five years? You can be a completely different person, the robots are coming for you “job” and none of us are essential.
In the future, I would like to address the potentiality of robotics in the realm of Law Enforcement. That’s a fun conversation Until then, here is a video of a robot dog dancing.