International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 12, December-2016 480

ISSN 2229-5518

The Threats of Automation and the Place

of Humans in the Workforce of the Future
Eneh Joy N, Orah Harris O, Ezema Longinus S
Abstract - The world is rapidly experiencing disruptive changes to conventional business models and traditional job families as a
result of automation, Artificial intelligence, robots and advancement in technological knowhow. Many of these major drivers of
transformation in the workplaces and industries globally are expected to have huge implications for job creation, job displacement
and widening skill gaps in the job market. There is a need for businesses, governments and individuals to prepare for future skills
requirements and job content in order to fully seize the opportunities presented by these trends. We examine how much the
available jobs are prone to take-over by computerisation and automation. We begin with a detailed look at current literatures on the
subject matter. We examine the current and future impacts of the automation and computerization trends on job availability and
human survival in the near future. We look at the jobs most at risk, the economic effects of automation and how humans can still be
relevant in an era where most of the jobs will be done by machines.

Index Terms: Automation; Employment, Jobs, Skill Demand, Technological Change; Workforce of the future

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1 INTRODUCTION

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This threat of automation to workforce is a huge concern
Technology is getting “smarter,” much more than we had
especially for low-skilled workers who make up a large
envisaged. They are making life very easy and taking a lot of
portion of the workforce in global manufacturing and
human deficiencies off the industries and workplaces.
agriculture value chains, and whose jobs are becoming
In the first era of automation (19th century) machines were
increasingly cost effective to replace with machines.
designed to take over the dirty and dangerous jobs - industrial
equipment such as the looming machines were invented to
Some jobs will be replaced by machines while new jobs are
relieve humans of drudgery in the workplaces and onerous
created and existing jobstake on new and different tasks.
manual labour.[1]

The next challenge was dealing with the routine services and Some of the key trends defining this era of automation that are
repetitive jobs. The quest for a solution led to the second particularlyrelevant to labor-intensive industries like
machine era (the 20th century). In this era, machines were manufacturing include:
employed to take away the dull jobs and relieve humans of
routine service transactions and clerical chores. This gave rise Intelligent Robotics: these are faster and cheaper robots with
to automated interfaces widely deployed in airline kiosks and greater cognitive abilities and greater dexterity and sensing.
call centres. These machines will take on a great range of tasks and raise
new questions about human capabilitiesversus machines.
In era three, 21 century and beyond, new technologies are
st

taking on more cognitive abilities and stretching their domain Additive Manufacturing: Although the jobs to be replaced by 3D
to eclipse the full range of the jobs that were traditionally printing are not anticipated to be of the same magnitude
reserved for the humans. They are taking on more complex asmany other technologies, it could significantly reduce
actions and decision-making, and doing them better, faster thehuman involvement in the manufacture and assembly of
and at a lower cost than the humans could do them. finished goods in the near future.

The pace, nature, and ubiquity of technological change will

have significant impacts on job availability, access, and quality Remote Connectivity: Remote connectivity is eliminatingthe
[2]. need for extensive travel to monitor production in remote

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locations. It is also allowingemployers to access specialized most influential news agency, in a move reporters fear will
skills and 24-hour productivity by leveraging people from inspire other media to follow suit [6]
aroundthe world. All these happen very fast and at low costs.
This can lead to downward pressures on wages due to the Companies across various industries are embracing these
ease of shifting remote jobsto lower-cost locations.On the other technologies toimprove operational efficiency and
hand, it can also boost job opportunities in rural economies. performance, reduce waste and conserve natural resources,
reachnew markets and audiences with speed and convenience,
and support product and process innovation.
Advanced Analytics: advanced analytics, alsoknown as Big
Data, is helping many companies, especially in
However good and comfortable the picture of a world of
manufacturing, to automate complex tasks easily.For some of
robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) looks, continuing to
such companies, trends like advanced analytics are improving
invest in technology and automation has a range of
operational performance by helping diagnoseand correct
implications for labor markets around the world [7] and how
process flaws, increase yields, and reduce waste and the need
humans will survive in the future
for certain materialinputs [3]

2 Review of relevant literatures

Internet of Things: In the coming decade, sensors and actuators
may be embedded in almostevery type of machine and A lot has been written about the impending battle between
physical asset. This will provide new ways of monitoring and humans and machines. Most times it is concluded that the

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managingall the “moving parts” that make up a business, machines will win and the humans will lose.
from air temperature and quality to the flow ofgoods or
While he admits that the displacement of workers by
materials through plants, distribution centers, and even onto
technology is nothing new, Edward D. Hess stressed that the
store shelves.[4]
nature of our rapidly advancing technology and the wide
variety of roles it’s poised to replace are altogether new [8].
Thisprovides manufacturers a number of benefits in terms of
operational efficiency, precision, andtransparency. It could According to Brynjolfsson and McAfee [9], the pace of
also create new jobs as well as improve existing jobs by technological innovation is still increasing, with more
enhancing workerproductivity [5] sophisticated software technologies disrupting labour markets
by making workers redundant. They pointed out that
This sophistication, combined with the global reach and ease automation is no longer confined to routine manufacturing
of spread of change and adoption of technology, is changing tasks.
the way goods are produced and services are delivered.

Knowledge work could be seen as work that is more mental

The robots are in Amazon warehouses relieving humans of the
than manual and which involves consequential decision
repetitive and drudge work of fetching items. In the hospitals
making. Such work traditionally requires a college education
AI software now reads MRIs. It can shop online, place orders
and accounts for a large proportion of jobs in today’s mature
and have their goods delivered. They are doing
economies. It is the high ground to which humanity has
computationally intensive research work, analysing huge data
retreated as machines have taken over less cognitively
sets and making more accurate inference from the results than
challenging work. But in the very foreseeable future, as the
humans.
Gartner analyst Nigel Rayner says, “Many of the things
Companies in Asia are on the leading edge of using robots in executives do today will be automated.”[10]
service jobs.
On the other hand, even if we never run out of jobs, the rate at
A "robotic journalist" called Kuaibi Xiaoxi or Little Xinhua has which jobs become obsolete and new skills spring up to
officially started work at state news agency Xinhua, China’s displace old and already established methods is getting too
fast for job creation to catch up.

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Far back in the 90s, John Maynard Keynes [11] predicted a expected to be less labour intensive or provide less reliable
widespread technological unemployment “due to our employment, thus reducing net job creation
discovery of means of economising the use of labour
outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for
labour” More part-timework and contractor work could mean less
access to formal employer benefits and weakened job
A study by Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey [12], security.Downward pressure on wages as a result of
leading experts on technological change at Oxford Martin competition with ‘cheap’ machine capital could lead to income
School, estimated that more than 47 percent of the U.S. losses.Reduction of available low-skill jobs could reduce
workforce is at high risk of automation, including both negotiating power of workers in remaining low-skill
middle- and lower-skill-level jobs. positions.Lower-skilled and less-educated groups could face
Their evidence showed that wages and educational attainment particular challenges in filling new higher-skilled roles if
exhibit a strong negative relationship with an occupation’s efforts are not made to help them grow needed skills.
probability of computerisation

As with every era of technological change, some jobs will be

James B. Huntington [13] warns that “major future inventions
replaced by machines, new ones will be created, while some
will have nowhere near the employment-boosting effect as
existing ones will take on new and different tasks
cars, electricity, or television did in the past, as their work

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processes will be far too automated.”
4 Will automationcontinue?
The current state of unemployment corroborates the fact that
we are not creating enough jobs. Technology has become an integral part of human life and
plays prominent roles in our daily lives. The convergence of
3 How will it affect man? computer intelligence and business process applications keep
Back in 1967, having witnessed the first attempts to automate accelerating and creating a new class of complex and
knowledge work, Peter Drucker declared of the computer: intelligent automation that is capable of performing activities
“It’s a total moron ...the dumbest tool we have ever had” [14] that currently require knowledge and skills by highly trained
personnel.
Automation is rapidly becoming more intelligent and
The robots, machines and AI make this union more seamless
affordable, while the global supply of talent is getting smaller
like Siamese twins.
and more expensive. This has raised concern among humans
about its impacts on jobs and the growing social and Expanding technological capabilities and declining costs will
physiological ills of joblessness. make entirely new uses for robots possible. Robots will likely
continue to take on an increasing set of manual tasks in
Continuous decline of employment in manufacturing and manufacturing, packing, construction, maintenance, and
occupations mainly consisting of tasks following well-defined agriculture and in a wide range of low-wage service
procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated occupations where most US job growth has occurred over the
algorithms, is causing the current low rate of past decades [18]
employment.[15], [16] The reason is that the core job tasks of
manufacturing occupations follow definite repetitive
procedures that can easily be codified in computer software Technological advances are contributing to declining costs in
and thus performed by computers [17]. robotics. Over the past decades, robot prices have fallen about
10 percent annually and are expected to decline at an even
faster pace in the near future [19]
A significant number of jobs are likely to be made redundant,
including predictable, routine tasks. New industries are

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Industrial robots, with features enabled by machine vision and means that helps them meet this target. They are not looking
high-precision dexterity, which typically cost 100,000 to to the side of the humans any more for this labor.
150,000 USD, will be available for 50,000 to 75,000 USD in the
The droids, the apps, the machines, Artificial intelligence, the
next decade, with higher levels of intelligence and additional
burgs, and those fancy shinny ensembles of ambidextrous
capabilities [20]
arms called robots are helping companies respond to
Declining robot prices will inevitably place them within reach
increasing competition, growing scarcity of natural resources,
of more users.
rising labor and material input costs.

In china employers are increasingly incentivised to substitute We are thrilled by their presence and how much extra abilities
robots for labour, as wages and living standards are rising – they give to the humans, and fail to notice how gradually our
Foxconn, a Chinese contract manufacturer that employs 1.2 jobs slip away from us. They are timely, more accurateand
million workers, is now investing in robots to assemble faster than their human makers; and most importantly they
products such as the Apple iPhone [21] don’t charge wages and salaries. They take the burdens off our
shoulders and leave us with heavier ones. Technology has
From 2010 to 2014, private investment in AI has grown from become us and we have become technology. Our soaring thirst
US$1.7 billion to US$14.9 billion, and it was on track to grow for the easy life and hunger for those fancy gadgets we carry
nearly 50 percent year-on-year in 2015 alone[22]. about fuel their existence.
MarketsandMarkets estimates that the AI, or cognitive
However, just because automation is possible doesn’t mean it
computing marketplace, will generate revenue of US$12.5

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will necessarily happen on a massivescale. The decision to
billion by 2019
automate varies significantly by industry and country.
Countries of the world are not at per in development and
We want everything around us to be smart, from the home to technological advancement. While some jobs will be lost in
the industry and hospitals. We crave the easy life where we some countries to automation, in others, particularly in
spend little human effort, less resources and achieve the most developing countries such jobs may still exist for a while
result. longer. In such countries the benefits of human labor for many
tasks will outweigh the costs and benefits of machine capital,
Our thirst for the good and easy life leaves corporate
at least for a period of time. Company decisions depend on a
organizations, Toyota, Google, Apple, Samsung and other
number of factors including wages, regulation, and ease
manufacturers with a heavy task. They jostle to meet up with
withwhich tasks can be automated.
our unending yearnings and expectations. Each wants their
products to be innovative, earn higher human approval rating,
From the works of David Autor [23], an economist at the
outsmart the others and lead the market.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “the merefact
These technologies are helping companies respond to that a job can be automated does not mean that it will be;
increasing competition, growing scarcity of natural resources, relative costs also matter.
rising labor and material input costs, fill labor shortages, and
increasing consumer demand for products that can be For example, about 80 percent of all the work involved in
customized and delivered without long lead times. manufacturing a car is said to be done
Automation is helping them raise productivity and precision by machines. David Autor noted that while Nissan relied on
in manufacturing. cheap local labour to run its plant in India, by contrast, it
relied heavily on robots to produce cars in Japan [24]

Cost matters really little as long as our desires are handed

whole to us. As much as we don’t care about the prices they
5. However, there are some benefits
do care. Their utmost desire is to bring it down as much as
possible; the lower the price, the higher the sales and their Some jobs will remain beyond the reach of automation, at least
profit. They are going for cheap labor, and embracing every for now. This includes, for example, work that requires
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 12, December-2016 484
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creativity or moving in unpredictable settings and performing higher incomes. If workers have the right skills to fill these
tasks requiring tactile feedback like placing fiberglass panels higher-paying manufacturing jobs and the benefits of
inside airplanes, boats, or cars [25]. improved efficiency are returned to workers, these could offer
significant hopes for improving incomes and overall well-
By enabling more people to access the same being. At the same time, as machines become more cost
information,automation can level the playing field for people effective it may be harder for human capital to compete, which
to enter the economy and access opportunities. Facilitiessuch could lead to downward pressure on wages
as “makerspaces" and tech incubators, for example, provide
affordable, shared access to newtechnologies, tools, and
6 How man could survive this era.
mentorships, to support innovation and small-scale
manufacturing [26]. This,alongside the sharing economy, is Unless we find as many tasks to give humans as we find to
bringing more people into the economy through self- take away from them, all the social and psychological ills of
employment. joblessness such as economic recession and youth
unemployment will continue to grow.
According to a recent BSR report [2], the followingbenefits will
come from automation:

David Autor, an economist at MIT who closely tracks the

Jobs may become accessible for certain groups such as women,
effects of automation on labor markets, recently complained
and people with disabilities, by overcoming social, cultural

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that “journalists and expert commentators overstate the extent
and physical barriers to work.
of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong
complementarities that increase productivity, raise earnings,
Technology could make the means of production more
and augment demand for skilled labor.” He pointed to the
accessible to small scale producers.
immense challenge of applying machines to any tasks that call
for flexibility, judgment, or common sense. However he
Factory spaces may become cleaner and safer, and some of the
clearly stated a fundamental point, “Tasks that cannot be
most difficult and dangerous tasks may be mechanised.
substituted by computerization are generally complemented
Repetitive motion injuries may be reduced, and sensors and
by it,” [27]
other tools may be used to monitor health and air quality.

An overriding implication of automating tasks is that the roles

Technology can augment human skills, enabling workers to
of humans in workplaces will be redesigned and organizations
extend their own capabilities and learn new skills, providing
will have to become very good at understanding where
more mobility.The age of automation is not going to be an all
machines can do a better job, where humans have the edge,
loss scenario for the humans.Many pro automation analysts
and how to reinvent processes to make the most of both types
anticipate millions of jobs to be created by technology,
of talent. [28]
including those involved in designing, creating, and repairing
robots. Other jobs will be created in burgeoning industries and
Thomas Davenport and Julia Kirby [29] looked at cases in which
by new business models, such as the sharing economy and
knowledge workers collaborate with machines to do things
circular economy that are enabled by advances in these
that neither could do well on their own and sought to reframe
technologies.
the threat of automation as an opportunity for augmentation.

This strategy views smart machines as our partners and

Technology will also affect the quality of existing and new
collaborators in knowledge work. “By emphasizing
jobs. Automation could make certain jobs more attractive and
augmentation, we can remove the threat of automation and
advance the well-being of workers. Rather than expose
turn the race with the machine into a relay rather than a dash”,
humans to health and environmental risks, robots could fill
they wrote. Those who are able to smoothly transfer the baton
the least attractive, most physical, and unsafe jobs. Technology
to and from a computer will be the winners.
could also make people more productive and, in turn, lead to
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They argue that smart machines can be our partners and 7. Conclusion
collaborators in our creative problem solving and propose a
change from pursuing automation to promoting Automation and computerization will not cease to advance.
augmentation. Human wants and desires to get ahead, conquer more
grounds, achieve more, maximize scare resources and get the
Augmentation means starting with what humans do today
best results with little effort and at a low cost will continue to
and figuring out how that work could be deepened rather
fuel the trends in automation and computerization in every
than diminished by a greater use of machines.
aspect of our life.
By maximizing performance of machines and employees, As technology races ahead, leaving job destructions in its
companies can simultaneously become more efficient and wake, there are grave implications for human survival in the
more innovative, raising both top- and bottom-line nearest future. Low-skill workers will be forced to seek tasks
performance [30] that are beyond the reach of robots and computerisation i.e.,
tasks requiring creative and social intelligence. Such people
This new mindset could change the future. will have to acquire creative and social skills if they are to win
the race against automation. A lot of the tasks that are the
Thomas H. Davenport and Julia Kirby pointed out that this preserves of human will be eclipsed by technology.
new mindset could be implemented in the following ways:
Past waves of technological advancement and demographic
1. Head for still higher intellectual ground. Those who change have led to increased prosperity, productivity and job

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are capable of more big-picture thinking and a higher creation. This does not mean, however, that these transitions
level of abstraction than computers will always have were free of risk or difficulty. It is therefore critical for humans
jobs to do in the machine era. Such people will need to anticipate and prepare for the challenges and risks of this
higher education to stay broadly informed and current job transition.
creative enough to be part of its ongoing innovation There is need to change our attitude towards employment and
and strategy efforts career, and brace for the new job order that is rapidly
unfolding.
2. Discover your uncodifiable strengths, focus on them
and then work hard continually to heighten them. However tight the race goes, man can still find opportunities

3. Find a specialty within your profession that wouldn’t to work with machines as counterparts in problem solving.

be economical to automate. When you find such

niches, dig deep inside them. Although they also have
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————————————————
• Eneh Joy is a Senior Research officer at Projects Development
Institute Enugu, Nigeria, PH-08064811235. E-mail:
[email protected]
• Orah Harris is a Research officer at Projects development
Institute, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Enugu
Nigeria PH-07081718990. E-mail: [email protected]
• Ezema Longinus S, is a Lecturer at Federal University of
Technology Owerri. PH- 08136404590, E-mail:
[email protected]

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