The robots are coming and they’re taking our jobs, jobs, jobs! Aaaaahh!
Or are they? Have you ever heard of robots as a service? What’s that you say? Imagine if you didn’t have to go to work anymore. What if you could send your robot to do your job instead? It does the work and you get the paycheck. Wouldn’t that be nice? People would hire your robot instead of you. That’s robots as a service. I think it’s the future. The only future where humans and robots can coexist.
Another option is for large companies to buy their own robots and put humans out of work. At first, only some humans would lose their jobs, but as A.I. becomes better and robots become smarter everyone’s job would be at risk.
Now let’s imagine a third option. President Me, yes, I’m the president. It’s my imaginary story. Imagine I pass a law making robots as a service the law of the land. Large companies can not own their own robots. They must hire them from people and no one may have over one robot in service at a time. You may own as many robots as you wish but only one can draw a paycheck. This quota can change to meet demand from year to year. If the country needs more workers, we change the number of robots allowed to draw a paycheck to two per person and so on.
All is well and good, except someone notices that some robots are better at the job than others. Robot M200 is faster than Robot M050. Now, when your robot applies for a job model M200 gets hired and M050 doesn’t. Oh oh. This sparks a technology race. If you want to stay competitive, you must keep your robot upgraded to the newest model. It’s an interesting future isn’t it? This is what’s coming.
Robot chefs, robot customer service, robot security guards. Everything that requires a body will become a robot. Everything else will be replaced with intelligent software or self-driving vehicles. Self-driving buses, airplanes, and taxis. Human doctors, nurses, and police officers will still exist, but on the bright side, no more traffic tickets. Self-driving cars are programmed to obey traffic laws.
Now let’s imagine the dark side. Imagine that I don’t become president and instead we get a pro-business president. This president allows giant corporations to own their own robots. Giant corporations will use their considerable wealth to replace their entire staff. That means higher profits for them and mass unemployment for you and I and other humans like us.
What will we do to survive? Grow our own vegetables? What happens when we can no longer pay the bills or rent? We will become homeless farmers living on the outskirts of town. A beautiful gleaming town where only rich people live. No government, no law, no sanitation, and worst of all, no internet. How will we organize? Someone needs to be in charge of sanitation but no one wants to do it. Will there be gangs that take care of individual neighborhoods? Things are not looking good my friend.
As you can see, robots as a service needs to be a thing, and it needs to be a thing right from the beginning, before it’s too late. Once robots become widely adopted it will be harder to switch over. The problem is robots are expensive. I can’t afford one and neither can you. They cost $50,000 each. If robots as a service were a thing right now you’d need to buy one on a payment plan and let it pay for itself over the next 5 years while you keep working at your regular job to support yourself. However, I’m not the president and robots as a service is not a law, yet.
This is why I’m writing this article. Robots as a service needs to be a law and it needs to be one yesterday because A.I. advancements are coming at an alarming pace. One of these scenarios will happen in your lifetime and it will need to be addressed. Time to bribe lawmakers and get stuff passed. Since I’m not crypto-rich yet I can’t do anything except write. That’s my contribution. Words can shape the future. It’s up to 25-year-old crypto-millionaires like you to change the world. Good luck!
