- With the growth of the internet, newspapers will die a slow death.
- Because of e-readers like Kindle and Kobo, printed books will go out of fashion.
- With the spread of Ola and Uber, auto-rickshaws plying on short routes in many cities of India would die out.
These are just some of the doomsday predictions made by people every time there was a disruption on the horizon. When we think of robots replacing humans at the workplace, we imagine similar visions of a changing world. Of course, we are not comfortable with that vision and visualize millions of lost jobs. But the reality is slightly different, in three ways.
First, when Visualyze talks of robots replacing humans at the workplace, we are not talking of robots that walk around and do things. Instead, we refer to software programs that can replace repetitive, monotonous, and error-prone work that humans do.
Second, as we explained in our last LinkedIn post, robots doing such jobs need not result in humans losing their employment. Instead, those human employees would only be redeployed in new roles where they can add more value.
Third, ‘replaced’ is not the right future we visualyze. Instead, we foresee a workplace where humans are assisted by software robots to do their jobs more efficiently.
Oh, by the way, none of the three dark predictions mentioned initially came true. Newspapers, books, public libraries, vinyl records are all surviving and thriving. But Uber has co-opted auto-rickshaws in their bouquet of offerings, and those auto-rickshaws are finding it easier to get short rides now.
Having explained this background, we feel that robots will be able to assist humans at the workplace. In fact, it is in the interest of both employers and employees that they do. Watch this space for updates on how Visualyze plans to partner with your organization in this endeavor.
