We live in a high tech, fast-paced world with rapidly advancing technologies. And while many things are still incredibly manual, countless jobs that humans once had to do are now performed by more efficient machines. We’re not just talking car washes or warehouse assembly lines, no, they’re infiltrating society much more than you might realize. Check out what jobs robots will be (or already are) doing in the very near future.
1. Referees and Umpires
With the amount of human error involved in close calls made by professional referees, having precise judgments by robot referees wouldn’t be a bad thing. “Beep beep boop – you’re out!”
2. Attorneys
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Imagine if you needed a lawyer and they not only knew your case inside and out, but also could recall every single detail of all other trials remotely related to yours. Case dismissed!
3. Financial Traders
The stock market is extremely unpredictable, making some trading akin to gambling. But robot traders would be able to take in massive amounts of data that would help guide them to making the best moves. You could potentially rake it in!
4. Cashiers
Self-checkout is a precursor to more advanced forms of robot cashiers that will arrive down the line. Say so long to the “pleasant” chitchat with your grocery store cashier.
5. Professional Drivers
Robot-operated cars could greatly reduce traffic, commute time, and accidents on the roads. The only bad thing? You might have to take your road rage out on your passenger, instead of other drivers.
6. Artists
That’s right, robots are being built to produce art. Maybe someday museums will be full of beautiful pieces created by robots. Weird.
7. Telemarketers
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Say farewell to the days of taking your anger out on an unsuspecting telemarketer. Soon you’ll just be yelling at a robot. Actually, it might not be all that different…
8. Firefighters
Firefighters risk their lives every day. This robot would be able to do the job that firefighters perform, without the exposure to danger. (Question: does he remind anyone else of the Terminator?)
9. Accountants
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Robot accountants would be able to take in infinite amounts of financial information, without making mistakes that some human accountants do. Plus, they won’t care when you hand in all your tax documents a week before the due date…
10. Customer Service Representatives
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In the future, when you call a company about questions, technological glitches, or service complaints, the system menu might not be the only computerized part (which could potentially be good?).
11. Teachers
A “Digital Aristotle” is a proposed robotic technology that would bring teaching into future. The robot would cater to the needs of each student, processing individual learning preferences to make the teaching process more streamlined. But where would you put your apple to get your gold star?
12. Doctors
IBM’s Watson has proven to be extremely effective at diagnosing diseases and recommending treatments. What if someday, we all went to the same doctor (one big computer program)?
13. Real Estate Agents
This may sound strange, but real estate agent robots could be very effective in finding exactly what you want amongst a wide range of options. House hunting is a pain.
14. Waiters
The above robot is named Baxter and he can learn the manual operations of countless jobs, including serving food and taking orders. There’s also a specific robot restaurant in Tokyo, Japan.
15. Writers
This has actually already started to happen. Some media companies are using robots to write concise articles quickly and without error. Now I’m worried…
(via TopTenz, CheatSheet, makeuseof)
Even though it can be a little unnerving to think about all the jobs that robots will be doing in the future, we’ve got to take the good with the bad. It could be very beneficial to have robots doing these jobs. Then again, I’ll wait to see how I feel when a robot replaces me.
