Ironman isn’t Ironman without the suit, but the suit has no power without the man. That is the future of robotic development, people and robots, working together hand-in-hand to accomplish more than we ever thought would be possible.
Gartner predicts that by 2025 one in three jobs will be done by software, robots and smart machines, but that is not an ominous prediction. And in fact, Gartner predicts that by 2020, artificial intelligence will create more jobs than it eliminates.
The next generation of robots isn’t working to replace people, it’s working to improve the lives and jobs of people. We see that in the industrial world, where robot design is pivoting from giant mechanical arms that take up factory floors, to smaller, more collaborative bots, that are designed to work alongside people. While these collaborative bots only make up 3% of the market today, they will make up 34% of the market by 2025.
In today’s world, to suggest that automation will eliminate the need for human workers is proving to be as ridiculous as suggesting that tablets will replace laptops. With the United States enjoying a 3.8% unemployment rate, the job market is more booming, and employees can be more selective about the roles they want to take. Locked in the battle for top talent, companies are looking to find ways to get more efficient and effective, rather than cut headcount.
Deloitte recently published a study confirming this fact, in that the majority of organizations leveraging automation are focused on the benefit of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their workforce, rather than the motivation of replacing people. In most cases, as it becomes easier to accomplish formerly manual tasks through automation, organizations will take advantage of the extra bandwidth by retraining employees to manage more valuable or rewarding activities. And this suits the millennials just fine.
This post was originally published (Dec 12, 2018) on Forbes.com (https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecarlin/2018/12/12/robots-and-millennials-joining-forces-to-change-the-future-of-work/#179382b67acd)