The New Luddites
At the beginning of the industrial revolution in England, groups of people called Luddites attacked factories and destroyed machines. They were angry that these machines were taking away jobs. In the 200 years since the Luddites, new technologies have replaced workers in many areas. Labor unions have opposed the job loss, but they have not won. Armies of machines are already common in factories. Robots do the work in dangerous conditions. This allows people to avoid injury and industrial disease. But because of this, there has been an increase in the number of people forced into low-skilled jobs in service industries, such as restaurants and stores. Pay in these jobs is usually low, but at least it gives people work. (1)This is why New York is a popular city with travelers.
The new age of technology in the workplace threatens job security – even in low-level jobs. Unskilled workers in service industries are now being replaced by machines and robots. Examples are all around us. (2)Compared with even a few years ago, much more of our banking is done online or at ATM machines than face to face with a person. In some countries, there are fewer and fewer cashiers because customers scan their own shopping.
The blogger Marshall Brain thinks that intelligent robots will soon be equal to or better than humans in certain areas. They will replace waiters and cashiers at restaurants and shops. (3)Brain says that the power of robots will go up as the cost comes down. This means that workers at restaurants and stores will be replaced by robots that will cook and serve our food, throw out waste, and stock shelves at big stores, such as Walmart. He believes that this change will happen quickly because restaurants and stores that do not use robots will not be able to compete and so will go out of business.
What will happen to the workers who are replaced by machines? In the past, improvements in technology led to increases in the applications for low-skilled jobs in the service industry, but this is unlikely to happen again. Workers will have nowhere to go since the robots will also be doing those low-skill jobs. (4)Perhaps we will see an era of robot wars, in which new Luddites with guns try to destroy all the robots!