Janet Collins
Billy MTechnology can eliminate us all out of the workforce if we don’t watch out
June 15th 2008 09:51
Recently I was having a discussion with friends about jobs and professions that have disappeared in the past few decades thanks to the march in technology.
When you think about it the list is quite long and many jobs have been long forgotten. One of the jobs that disappeared overnight many years ago was “the chalkie” on the stock exchange floor. Other jobs had never offered the colour or excitement that “the chalkie” brought to the whole stock exchange culture but they were jobs that many did all day every day and have disappeared from the workplace landscape.
Take the masses who worked on the factory floor or toll collectors who have now been almost obliterated since the introduction of the “E tag” on our motorways and tolling booths. It’s not to say that these jobs provided excitement or really any kind of motivation but they were jobs all the same.
Recently on and ABC News Radio report, I heard a story about a restaurant in Germany that had replace its waiters with computers. It worked like this. At each table is a computer screen where each customer can send their own order through to the kitchen or the bar via the computer. I did miss the bit telling me how the food and drinks arrived at the table after that but I think there is probably still a waiter or two employed to do just that.
While the do-it-yourself ordering screen is a novel idea and one that can save an establishment so much in the long run on labour costs, many of the chain cafes here in Australia have been operating in ways to do the same for many years. Take “Starbucks” and “Gloria Jeans” to name two of them. There’s no table service at all at these establishments and at times this doesn’t make too much difference. It is very annoying though when wanting a second cup means having to leave your table and stand in a long queue.
After travelling to Japan on a business trip a few years back, a friend of mine commented on how surprised he was that in a country renowned for its technology know-how and savvy, there were still toll collectors on the major tollways. Obviously, Japan has considered more carefully the impact of eliminating jobs that provide a livelihood for many.
The one thing that stands out in this technology take-over is that it has been almost completely concentrated on jobs at the lower end of the salary scale. Take for example the many receptionists or telephonists as they were called a long time ago. They would politely assist with queries, direct your call through to someone who could help you or take a message so that someone who could help you would return your call.
No matter what company or department I call these days, the response is a computer generated voice complete with instructions on how I get to where I need to be. How many of us haven’t cried out in total exasperation when unable to speak to an actual person?
But why hasn’t technology raided some of the jobs that pay much higher salaries and the elimination of these would save companies and governments more money. After all, that is what market-driven economies seek to achieve.
If a friendly voice at the other end of the phone can be replaced by a computer-generated one, then what about other professions that are only heard and not seen? For example, the radio announcer, in many commercial radio stations referred to as “the shock-jock”, could be quite easily replaced I would imagine. Recordings could be updated daily sprinkled with the usual racist utterings or exposes on the latest welfare scandal or crime wave. These are jobs that really offer no specialty and the rantings are often quite predictable so I wouldn’t think there wouldn’t be a huge loss in taking the human out of the equation.
Our news readers in radio read from a script anyway and most of them attend the same radio schools for training and sound exactly the same. Recording of the news would not be much of a problem then. On commercial stations this would be very easy because the news content is really very little of the overall content anyway.
Many of our business people who tend to push themselves onto radio and get quoted in the newspapers on any movements in business are really only attempting to promote themselves as an authority but really are only reading off a report that has been generated by some institute somewhere.
Our politicians may be a bit more difficult as our democratic system means we elect them to represent us. As society has “progressed” however, our politicians no longer are ex-brickies or ex-builders labourers or really ex-anything. Most of them are professional politicians only, having joined their respective parties early in their life and spent most of their lives in other politicians’ offices before becoming politicians themselves. This fractures any possible sympathy or understanding for those out there and who they represent.
The more many professionals become almost the same in dress, hairstyles, manner, use of language and general demeanour, managed by media trainers, corporate fashion advisors and image and public relations consultants, the less they offer us anything individual or new and the more robotic they become.
It is not only their appearance though that stereotypes them all and strips them of any real identity. The management training, once gained through experience and knowledge handed down from savvy bosses, now comes solely from graduate schools. It is all textbook – and the same texts. Surely this uniformity lends itself to a massive technology takeover.
Decades ago I remember watching a very funny movie called “Trading Places”. If it was not Eddie Murphy’s first, it was certainly one of his early ones. The theme of the movie was based on a bet made by two older rich men. The bet was whether or not you could swap an executive (who happened to be their privileged nephew) with a street guy from a not so privileged background and it would be any different.
While this movie was released before many of the technology advances we know of today, it rings true that jobs at much higher levels can be replaced too and many of them not necessarily by people.
I guess my whole point in writing this has been to highlight the actions by business leaders and heads of government in being all too ready to restructure organisations and eliminate positions that may have been sight unseen but were positions that performed necessary functions anyway.
When technology was starting to take a run, we all thought it would just make our lives easier. What we didn’t predict was that it may replace us entirely.
When you think about it the list is quite long and many jobs have been long forgotten. One of the jobs that disappeared overnight many years ago was “the chalkie” on the stock exchange floor. Other jobs had never offered the colour or excitement that “the chalkie” brought to the whole stock exchange culture but they were jobs that many did all day every day and have disappeared from the workplace landscape.
Take the masses who worked on the factory floor or toll collectors who have now been almost obliterated since the introduction of the “E tag” on our motorways and tolling booths. It’s not to say that these jobs provided excitement or really any kind of motivation but they were jobs all the same.
Recently on and ABC News Radio report, I heard a story about a restaurant in Germany that had replace its waiters with computers. It worked like this. At each table is a computer screen where each customer can send their own order through to the kitchen or the bar via the computer. I did miss the bit telling me how the food and drinks arrived at the table after that but I think there is probably still a waiter or two employed to do just that.
While the do-it-yourself ordering screen is a novel idea and one that can save an establishment so much in the long run on labour costs, many of the chain cafes here in Australia have been operating in ways to do the same for many years. Take “Starbucks” and “Gloria Jeans” to name two of them. There’s no table service at all at these establishments and at times this doesn’t make too much difference. It is very annoying though when wanting a second cup means having to leave your table and stand in a long queue.
After travelling to Japan on a business trip a few years back, a friend of mine commented on how surprised he was that in a country renowned for its technology know-how and savvy, there were still toll collectors on the major tollways. Obviously, Japan has considered more carefully the impact of eliminating jobs that provide a livelihood for many.
The one thing that stands out in this technology take-over is that it has been almost completely concentrated on jobs at the lower end of the salary scale. Take for example the many receptionists or telephonists as they were called a long time ago. They would politely assist with queries, direct your call through to someone who could help you or take a message so that someone who could help you would return your call.
No matter what company or department I call these days, the response is a computer generated voice complete with instructions on how I get to where I need to be. How many of us haven’t cried out in total exasperation when unable to speak to an actual person?
But why hasn’t technology raided some of the jobs that pay much higher salaries and the elimination of these would save companies and governments more money. After all, that is what market-driven economies seek to achieve.
If a friendly voice at the other end of the phone can be replaced by a computer-generated one, then what about other professions that are only heard and not seen? For example, the radio announcer, in many commercial radio stations referred to as “the shock-jock”, could be quite easily replaced I would imagine. Recordings could be updated daily sprinkled with the usual racist utterings or exposes on the latest welfare scandal or crime wave. These are jobs that really offer no specialty and the rantings are often quite predictable so I wouldn’t think there wouldn’t be a huge loss in taking the human out of the equation.
Our news readers in radio read from a script anyway and most of them attend the same radio schools for training and sound exactly the same. Recording of the news would not be much of a problem then. On commercial stations this would be very easy because the news content is really very little of the overall content anyway.
Many of our business people who tend to push themselves onto radio and get quoted in the newspapers on any movements in business are really only attempting to promote themselves as an authority but really are only reading off a report that has been generated by some institute somewhere.
Our politicians may be a bit more difficult as our democratic system means we elect them to represent us. As society has “progressed” however, our politicians no longer are ex-brickies or ex-builders labourers or really ex-anything. Most of them are professional politicians only, having joined their respective parties early in their life and spent most of their lives in other politicians’ offices before becoming politicians themselves. This fractures any possible sympathy or understanding for those out there and who they represent.
The more many professionals become almost the same in dress, hairstyles, manner, use of language and general demeanour, managed by media trainers, corporate fashion advisors and image and public relations consultants, the less they offer us anything individual or new and the more robotic they become.
It is not only their appearance though that stereotypes them all and strips them of any real identity. The management training, once gained through experience and knowledge handed down from savvy bosses, now comes solely from graduate schools. It is all textbook – and the same texts. Surely this uniformity lends itself to a massive technology takeover.
Decades ago I remember watching a very funny movie called “Trading Places”. If it was not Eddie Murphy’s first, it was certainly one of his early ones. The theme of the movie was based on a bet made by two older rich men. The bet was whether or not you could swap an executive (who happened to be their privileged nephew) with a street guy from a not so privileged background and it would be any different.
While this movie was released before many of the technology advances we know of today, it rings true that jobs at much higher levels can be replaced too and many of them not necessarily by people.
I guess my whole point in writing this has been to highlight the actions by business leaders and heads of government in being all too ready to restructure organisations and eliminate positions that may have been sight unseen but were positions that performed necessary functions anyway.
When technology was starting to take a run, we all thought it would just make our lives easier. What we didn’t predict was that it may replace us entirely.
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