Anyone familiar with science fiction knows that the machines are coming for us. Whether it be sending killer robots back in time or creating an elaborate virtual reality system to keep humanity docile (maybe not the most practical plans, but you can’t fault the machines for not being creative), the idea of machines turning evil is a fixation in our imagination it seems.
And while we are still a long way from thermonuclear war with the machines, people are beginning to worry. Namely, that machines are taking people’s jobs. This fear has become so prevalent that 2020 Democratic Presidential Andrew Yang has made reacting to the automation of work a cornerstone of his entire campaign. The machines may not be coming for our lives, but they could be coming for our jobs. This article hopes to come at this question from a different angle, by examining the lifecycle of jobs. Jobs, much like anything else, have their own lifecycles. Take any job and you can find a time in history when that job did not exist. And even if certain jobs have existed for centuries, they look very different now than they did even a decade ago. Jobs’ lifecycles give us some insight into where this automation craze may be headed and can help us and our children better prepare for what’s coming.
A Job is Born:
Starting from the very beginning, some jobs begin with someone tinkering to try and solve a problem. If the solution to this problem requires some type of constant, ongoing action that can be exchanged for something of value in return, ta-da! You have a job!
Take the position of a doctor, for example. This position evolved from someone trying to solve the problem of people becoming sick or injured. Over time individuals trying to solve this problem learned to use various techniques as medicine. They then exchanged their services for something else of value. Slowly and gradually they passed on their knowledge and more people began working this “job.”
Other jobs start with outsourcing. If a large portion of people are doing the same thing as part of their job but it is, say, only 1% of the total work they do for their job, someone becomes an expert at that one task and offers their services to everyone. This frees up time for all their “clients” to focus on other vital parts of their work. Think of how people used to design everything themselves, despite having very little expertise in design. Now they just hire a designer.
Education & Adolescence:
Regardless of whether a job is born from problem solving or outsourcing, it always comes down to someone specializing in doing something. If demand for this job continues to grow, gradually more and more people will learn the skills needed for this specialization. If demand continues growing even further, formal education systems such as universities or trade schools may begin to offer the preparation necessary for this job. At this point, the job begins to become more accessible and standardized.
Becoming a Parent:
If the job’s demand and supply continue to rise, it eventually spurs the creation of sub-jobs. These are even further specialized functions of the original job. Think of how originally there were just doctors, then along came surgeons, pediatricians, cardiologists, etc... This is essentially the stage where a job is split into smaller, further specialized functions.
The job becomes more structured and standardized and after many years, if the body of knowledge related to performing the job becomes vast enough and sufficiently structured, eventually low skilled labor is able to perform the job. Take food service for example. Yes, there are still specialized chefs, but fast food thrives on low skill labor working in their kitchens. The job of food preparation (while having split into specialized sub-jobs) became so structured that specialization is no longer required in order to perform the basic function of the job.
Retirement:
If the job continues to be standardized to the point that the job can be done by one person and tomorrow by another with little effect on the result, automation begins to appear. The highly structured nature of the job becomes the algorithm that, when combined with the ability of computers to make decisions and take actions, brings automation to the job.
End of a Job:
The job is still alive though, just humans are no longer required. A job is only truly dead when people no longer need the value offered by the job. Just like jobs moving from West Virginia's chemical factory to China is not the death of the job, it's just the job migrating to a new country. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the transitions between stages are usually not black and white. There is almost always a distribution meaning that a job could be 1% in adolescence, 65% standardized, 6% in retirement etc…
Automation & The Lifecycle of a Job:
Having reached the end of the lifecycle of a job, we can now examine whether or not the machines are really coming for us. Many jobs are entering further into the automation stage and with artificial intelligence, the speed is faster than ever before. But all hope is not lost. As we discussed, when demand and supply rise, jobs often spur the creation of new sub/specialized jobs. No doubt the job we are doing today might be replaced by a machine tomorrow. But it will pave a path of creating new jobs that did not exist yesterday. Jobs that are more fulfilling and meaningful. The transition might be difficult, but it is one we must endure. In the next article, we will look at how humans and societies have transitioned in the past through the changes in the life cycle of the jobs.