In what industries will robots replace human workers? How should workers and their families and communities handle this transition, especially if they are over the age of 50 or so?
For a long time robots seemed like some futuristic things that would be in all our homes and cater to our every need. Today, robots are just in all our factories and production facilities instead. This is not exactly a bad thing though because robots have a number of good traits that humans don’t. Robots don’t require minimum wage pay, or any pay for that matter. Robots don’t need to take breaks or eat lunch. They don’t get distracted or slow down unless something breaks or goes bad in the system which doesn’t happen very often. Consistency in quality is also a major bonus. There are so many benefits to using technology in place of humans but there exist obvious drawbacks as well. Job loss is a very real concern for many people especially when we have an administration so focused on job creation. However, I believe that just because these robots are replacing humans in manufacturing does not mean that there will be job loss. There will always be handcrafted items that technology cannot create without a human touch no matter how much robots and technology take over. With the rise of technology there will be a rise in the number of jobs in the technology field and those who maintain such equipment. This means new training and different types of jobs. We will not lose our role as a manufacturing nation, people will just be involved in manufacturing in a different way. Not everyone can go to college and not everyone will be able to jump into a field with no training. Training is going to be more common as demand increases for people to maintain the systems used by large manufacturing companies and the like. As demand increases then falls prices will drop and even smaller businesses will soon be able to afford robots and other technologies in their business structures.
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