The future is here: Artificial Intelligence and the changing workforce
George Jetson and his family lived in a future with flying cars, a household robot, and other high-tech luxuries. The Jetsons originally premiered in 1962 as a sci-fi fantasy cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera and relaunched in the late ’80s. The Jetsons lived a fairly simple life in the sky with all of the things that we thought the future would hold. Even with all of the luxuries and gadgets that made life easier, George often complained about his job because it consisted of pushing a button repeatedly on the RUDI (Referential Universal Digital Indexer) computer for one hour a day, twice a week. It was too much work for George and his Space Age peers.
In the Jetsons, many of the common jobs that we have today were replaced by computers and robots, leaving humans with little work to do. Is this what the future holds for us as technology continues to revolutionize the workplace? While it might seem laughable to think about computers taking over our work, this concept is a serious consideration for many in the technology field.
We don’t have flying cars or household robots, but we do have self-driving cars that are being tested. Some of us even own a personal robot that is tasked with the chore of cleaning our homes. Technology is growing at such an exponential rate that many technologists are starting to worry about and plan for how these advancements will affect our society at large, specifically as more and more of our jobs become automated. Automation is not a future sci-fi idea but a reality in today’s workplace. The future is here, and we, as the church, need to think critically about the impact that these technologies will have on our lives, especially on our work.
More on work and technology:
- Light Magazine: Work – ERLC.com
- When Your Boss Is an Algorithm – Alex Rosenblat
- Book: Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass – Mary L. Gray & Siddharth Suri
- Book: The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines – Jay Richards
Interesting technology stories
- A new way to use the AI behind deepfakes could improve cancer diagnosis – Technology Review
- Artificial Intelligence at Google: Our Principles – Google AI
- What if All Your Slack Chats Were Leaked? – New York Times
- Scooters, cities clash over rider data – Axios