Can Robots Replace Human Workers?

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Have you ever watched the movie named “I, Robot” before? Do you still find it creepy that robots ruled nearly the entire world? Recently, there has been a new research area growing rapidly in Industrial Engineering: Robotic Technology. Through researching robotics, industrial engineers want to improve the performance of the assembly lines operated by integrating human resources and robots. In traditional IE philosophy, engineers mainly focus on the relationship between human factors and machines.  In recent decades, with the development of artificial intelligence, and the continuing enhancement of comprehensive ability in robots by technological advances, more and more hand crafting will be replaced by automatons.  In Japan, some human-robots, which can imitate the emotion of human beings, have already become a part of the family. Is this a signal of overall human emancipation or the beginning of a nightmare? 

Con

As the robots run through their automated routines, they cannot improve the performance of the production and detect the system’s errors, at least in a short time.  With robots, there is no way to look for further improvements. The robot relies so much on computer software and is manipulated by humans, which make it easy for the designer to change the robot’s routine. This will create another ethical problem. If the company who designs the robot’s routines makes a small error in the robot program deliberately, they can make extra money from updating the robot’s parameters. On the other hand, in order to make more profit, the company would like to force the robots to create a large number of outputs instead of quality without worrying about the robot’s complaints. Meanwhile, as production involves integrating more robots, the number that unemployment will increase. In addition, robots make workers lazy and lose ability. Because that robot can do without practice what the human beings can do, the workers will become unfamiliar with the operation process. Last but not least, while robot can protect the worker from hazards, they also create some safety problems because the robot is still unpredictable if something goes wrong in the robot’s routines or microchips.

Pro

Some industrial environments, like mining and the chemical industry, directly influence human health and safety. Especially in the mining industry, the number of mine disasters has increased during these years. While working in the mine, a worker cannot breath fresh air or see the brightness of day. If the worker feels the workstation is not safe enough, it impedes improvement of productivity and quality. For these industrial areas, it is difficult to develop and expend in the future. Considering this reason, in order to avoid the hazards, companies prefer to use robots to take the place of the humans. They don’t need to pay employees subsidies to improve work efficiency or feel anxious that they will lose experienced employees and have to train new employees again. Meanwhile, because robots have the ability to work at a constant speed without pausing for sleep or breaks, robots can definitely improve productivity. In this case, robots can be left to do long work especially for precise operations. Another advantage of robots is that they are easy to reset, exchange, and update.  If the company fires the human worker, not only does this tend to upset other workers, which will result in the loss of efficiency because of panic about job loss, but also the company would need to pay to train a new worker and make them familiar with the process, which will take a long time. To robot’s advantage, the company can replace the robot without causing a fear of job loss among human employees. Meanwhile, the robot industry also creates a lot of job positions. For some job positions that are replaced by robots, these unemployed workers can find new jobs in the robot industry. What they need to do is not complain in that the robots taking their jobs but, instead, they need to learn new skills regarding robot operation, robot maintenance and robot optimization.  

Conclusion

Robots are still a new technology for our society. There are still lots of areas we need to research and consider. In my perspective, the benefits of robots outweigh the cost. Although the initial cost of robot is expensive, in the long run, a company could earn more benefits because robots work much more efficiently than human beings. Furthermore, some dangerous industries are thirsty for robots. Robot may make some people lose their jobs, but they also create new job positions. I believe in the development of technology and the consideration of ethical issues. The shortcomings will be addressed and most of the disadvantages, like reliability and maintenance, will be remedied. Society will generate new job positions that need an employee who can improve the performance of robots, maintain the robots, or some technique optimization related to the robots. Eric Lafferty indicated in his article, “No matter what happens, upcoming technological advancements will lead us to consider closely just what constitutes life” (Eric Lafferty).

Eric Lafferty. (2010). The Ethical Dilemmas of Robotics.'[PDF Documents] Retrieved from http://www.uwec.edu/greener/phil308/TermPapers2/eric.lafferty.phil308.paper[1].pdf