Science

A.I. Will Eliminate 6 Percent of Jobs by 2021, Report Finds 

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You probably used to cyberbully SmarterChild back in the day, but it looks like the tables are turning, because a research group is predicting that artificial intelligence will eliminate six percent of all jobs within the next five years.

According to the advisory group Forrester, A.I. is going to have a big impact on the job market in the very near future.

“Solutions, powered by A.I./cognitive technology will displace jobs, with the biggest impact felt in transportation, logistics, customer service, and consumer services,” the report explains, though the flesh and blood employees destined to lose their jobs to machines would probably object to the term “solutions.”

Forrester’s latest release draws on another of the group’s reports from last year titled “The Future Of Jobs, 2025: Working Side By Side With Robots,” which found that A.I. and other technologies will replace 16 percent of all jobs by 2025 but create nine percent more for a net loss of seven percent.

White collar jobs — especially the “cubical work” that 89 million Americans do every day — and customer service jobs are going to be the hardest hit, though the report claims that robots are slowly but surely getting better at manual labor.

We must live in harmony with the machines. 

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However, according to Forrester, “Man/machine collaboration frees humans for higher-value work,” and we’ll still need meat sacks to help foster the robots’ growth and step in when only human-to-human interaction will do.

“Employers will judge you by how well you interact with robots; prepare to add this skill set as a new resume item,” the 2015 report explains, seemingly unaware of just how dark that sounds.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

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