By Jennifer Nicaud, Administrative Law Judge
Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission
Jackson, MS
In the early 1960s, a committee of scientists and social activists sent an open letter to the US President, Lyndon B. Johnson: “The cybernation revolution” will create “a separate nation of the poor, the unskilled, the jobless” who will be unable to find work and to afford life’s necessities, they argued.
Actress Fran Drescher, the President of the Screen Actors Guild- American Federation of Television and Radio Artists told the crowd at a press conference that “we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines,” it was not part of a science fiction script. The path of technological progress has produced controversy between innovation and the labor market, from the scribes put out of work by the printing press to the weavers forced to compete with mechanized looms and the factory workers displaced by robots. A.I., too, will surely shake up the labor force in meaningful ways in the coming decades.
An International Monetary Fund ( “IMF”) report found that 40% of the jobs around the world will be affected by AI. In advanced economies , the IMF prediction rises to 60% of jobs set to be affected by machine learning, with about half being negatively impacted. The losers will face lower salaries, reduced hiring, and some jobs will disappear altogether. The challenge is to find policies and program now to minimize the negative outcomes of AI such as unemployment and job-market dislocation and capture A.I.’s potential to boost productivity.
As Companies seek to achieve high warehouse operations, efficiency becomes paramount to meet broader objectives. In an age of next-day delivery, expectations on the warehouse staff has increased dramatically. This need for speed in delivery has fundamentally altered the landscape of warehouse operations. One would think to meet heightened demands, a warehouse employer would increase the staffing levels. However, it appears that this solution is unviable with rising labor costs and in some cases a scarcity of available labor. Thus, it appears that many warehouses have shifted the way that they operate to meet these demands without relying solely on human labor.
Automation has emerged as the alleged ally to support the warehouse workers. The benefits of automation to the employer are clear. Automation can significantly augment the human capacities. Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and robots can transport goods within the warehouse, which will reduce the physical strain on warehouse workers and increase the speed of filling orders. Moreover, advanced conveyor systems and robotic arms can expedite packing and palletizing processes. However, these automatized workers may take positions filled by employees, many of whom are uneducated and may have difficulties finding positions in the future.
However, while automation is increasingly being employed for tasks that were traditionally performed manually, there is little question that the change can lead to fewer injuries. The technology may bring new risks. The implementation of automation can reduce instances of repetitive strain injuries and other common injuries, but it can also lead to more severe workers compensation claims as workers interact with machines in different ways. Automated operations can give employees a false sense of safety because they are performing fewer manual tasks and may perceive that there is no longer a danger of being exposed to traditional workplace hazards. However, many companies utilizing these compressed time lines have become the subject of several investigations including by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration on worker injury rates and work site delivery “quotas.”
In an era of automated workplaces, the uneducated workforce is likely to face significant challenges finding employment, as automation tends to replace jobs that require repetitive, routine tasks, which are often held by individuals with lower levels of education. Automation could lead to increased unemployment, a need for significant retraining programs, or a shift towards jobs that heavily rely on interpersonal skills where automation is less prevalent, like care-giving or certain service industries.
Jobs that are easily automated, like data entry, assembly line work, or basic customer service are often held by less educated workers, making them highly susceptible to job losses due to automation. To remain competitive in the job market, uneducated workers will need to acquire new skills through training programs to qualify for jobs that require more complex cognitive abilities or interpersonal interactions.
The potential exists for job shifts to service sectors due to automation. fragment???? Employment in fields like healthcare support, food service, or personal care may become more accessible to less educated workers as these sectors may be less easily automated. Automation of the workplace has the potential for significant income inequality. Thus, if my job consists of carrying things in a warehouse and a robot could take over those tasks, then it really depends on what other tasks I’m doing in my job. If I’m doing skilled tasks, such as programming the robot or overseeing its supply routes, then this innovation can translate into higher wages. But if that’s not what I’m doing, then there’s no reason for an employer to pay me. If less educated workers struggle to find new jobs or are forced to accept lower-paying positions, it could exacerbate income inequality.
If you were a farm worker 120 years ago, would it have been possible for you to imagine a world where only one in 20 people worked on farms? Even 20 years ago, economists probably wouldn’t have predicted that there would be 800,000 personal trainers employed in the US today and 2.5 million jobs in the app development industry.
During the industrial revolution, local and national governments made major public investments to teach the skills of reading, writing, and math that were necessary for the new jobs at that time. There was also investment in new roads, ports, and other infrastructure. In this new era, many have suggested there is a need public investment in digital skills for everyone, as well as digital highways that allow regions to participate in new economic opportunities.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a general-purpose technology, or GPT, and has applications across industries and the potential to transform the broad economy. According to a 2022 IBM report, one-quarter of US companies have already adopted some form of A.I., while Chinese and Indian companies are at nearly 60 percent. A.I. has made inroads in tech, manufacturing, healthcare, banking and financial services, media, retail, hospitality, and auto making.
The differences between A.I. and other industrial transformation has been the speed in which A.I. has been adopted. It took almost 100 years from when the first steam engine enabled the mechanization of textile production and railroad transportation in the United States at the beginning of the 19th century until peak adoption by the turn of the next century. By contrast, in February 2023 a research note from Swiss investment bank UBS found that within two months of its initial release, ChatGPT had 100 million monthly active users around the globe. The researchers found, by comparison, TikTok took nine months to reach 100 million monthly users, and Instagram about 2.5 years.
Some believe that A.I.’s productivity curve may also be faster. In light of the pace of automation in the work place, significant education in workforce development and retraining programs must be created and incentives for companies to hire less educated workers. The extent and cost of retraining and providing enhanced education to the work force has not been established. There is little question the impact on workers’ compensation injuries and claims will be huge. All agree that automation, which is increasingly being employed for tasks that were traditionally performed manually by workers, will lead to fewer injuries and significantly reduce the number of workers’ compensation claims and the system currently in place in the future.