Workers' Rights v. Robot Jobs
AI will have a major impact on numerous types of paid employment as computers that learn on the job recasts the job market.
Twenty-nine-year-old Lee Hayhow is the third generation of his UK family to work as a lorry driver, following his father and grandfather. He is proud of his job. "I've always enjoyed lorries and driving. I trained as a professional driver. It is a profession. You're almost your own boss, in charge of that vehicle. I always do it to the best of my ability. It's a good feeling."
He estimates it costs £3,000 to train as a heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) driver. Mr Hayhow's employer, O'Donovan Waste Disposal, paid for this, but not all firms do, he says. And he would be delighted to see the next generation of Hayhows, his two young daughters, follow his career path. But by then, the decision may not be theirs to take.
Call Centres to Catering
Lorry driving, like many other jobs that help power the economy, could be facing a huge shake-up.
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) - a field of computer science in which machines are taught to carry out tasks that require human traits of thought or intelligence, have led some to predict a knock-on catastrophe for jobs. Nowhere is the exponential growth of AI more apparent than in the race towards self-driving vehicles.
But AI doesn't stop at transport. There have been stark warnings about its impact on the jobs market as computer programs are honed to perform a number of roles, including call centre work, banking and paralegal responsibilities, retail and catering tasks, and journalism.
Up to 46% of jobs in Scotland could be at risk within the next decade, the Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland recently claimed. Accountancy firm PwC predicted 30% of existing jobs in the UK could be "at high risk of automation" by the 2030s.
Calum Chace, author of Surviving AI and the Economic Singularity, foresees "quite a lot" of unemployment caused by the takeover of technology "in a decade and a lot in two decades".
"The industrial revolution was mechanisation and humans had something else to offer - cognitive skills. This time around machines are coming for our cognitive jobs," said Mr Chace.
Others, though, predict a huge economic dividend. Consultants Accenture estimated AI could add about of £654bn to the UK economy by 2035.
One influential voice talks of old jobs making way for new ones. But these new occupations cannot be taken for granted.
"The absolute nightmare for me would be that we're applying this technology, we're displacing jobs as a result of it - which will happen - but what we're not doing at the same time is creating all the jobs in computer science, in data analytics, in software code writing," said Juergen Maier, chief executive of Siemens UK.
Despite the apparent success of the European Truck Platooning Challenge in March last year, in which convoys of automated lorries (with humans on board just in case) drove from Sweden, Germany and Belgium to Rotterdam in Holland, the Road Haulage Association said its members were "deeply sceptical" about whether driverless lorries would arrive on the roads in the next 10 years.
Jack Semple, director of policy, admitted "if it works, particularly in HGVs, there is huge potential for savings. You eliminate not only driver costs but also the restrictions on vehicle movement that come from drivers' hour’s regulations."
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Image: Nick Youngson
