Increasing automation and new technologies have long propelled a belief that everyone's job will one day be done by a robot and there'll be no jobs for human.
But a new survey by the Pew Internet Project and Elon University reveals experts are nearly equally divided on whether that scenario will eventually happen. After all, someone has to keep improving robotics technology and fixing robots.
The survey polled 2,551 experts who were asked this question: Will networked, automated, artificial intelligence (AI) applications and robotic devices have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025?
Of those surveyed, 48 percent said robots will, in fact, have displaced more jobs than they have created by 2025, with the other 52 percent taking the more optimistic stance.
The two views are very clear. On the one hand is the opinion that human desires are always changing and therefore there will always be a need for humans to accomplish jobs. On the other hand is the assumption that robots will become so complex that they can do anything a human can without the need for food or pay, and therefore take jobs away from humans.
Historically, economists have agreed that automation does not hurt employment in the long run. In a poll of economists taken in February, only 2 percent said automation has hurt employment in the U.S., with 76 percent saying that they either agree or strongly agree that it has not hurt employment; 7 percent of those polled said that they were uncertain.
With this in mind, the new poll conducted by Pew certainly is a bit more worrisome, and shows the changing opinion in the field.
Many have stated the American workforce needs to shift gears given the advent of robotics and automation innovations.
"The education system is not well-positioned to transform itself to help shape graduates who can 'race against the machines.' Not in time, and not at scale. Autodidacts will do well, as they always have done, but the broad masses of people are being prepared for the wrong economy," says technology consultant Bryan Alexander.
