It’s no secret that for corporations to increase profit and drive costs down, jobs in manufacturing and distribution were outsourced to China, India, Mexico and other smaller Southeast Asian and Latin-American countries. Among the middle classes, there was a commonly held belief that if America became more nationalist or protectionist, we could bring these jobs back home. But bringing these jobs back home is not even remotely realistic. Technology has forever changed the world.
Economists Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University have released a new study that offers a compelling understanding of the way widespread automation will impact the job market. The study cites robots as being responsible for the loss of 670,000 jobs in manufacturing from 1990 to 2007. This is just the beginning. According to the study, the use of robots is soon expected to quadruple.
No one is a magician and no one can put the genie back in the bottle. The reality is as award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker John de Graaf states in his thought-provoking and accurate article: “The robots are coming...the robots are coming!”
Look out, the Robots are already here. And there is no limit to what they can do.
Patricia Vaccarino
Patricia Vaccarino is an accomplished writer who has written award-winning film scripts, press materials, articles, essays, speeches, web content, marketing collateral, and ten books.