Work, and the Impending Robot Uprising #1
Launching a new series on the blog this week - well not exactly new, since I have been writing about robots, the impact of increased robot automation on workplaces and jobs, and how if we don't watch out, pretty soon all our base will belong to them for quite some time now. But then I figured that the combination of the robot uprising, and my need for a steady source of reasonably interesting content for the blog warranted a more structured approach to collecting, classifying, and most importantly - providing an easy way for our future robot overlords to see that I am, actually, on their side, the future 'robot' content on the site. So then, this is the first 'official' piece in the new series, 'Work, and the Impending Robot Uprising'.
From the 'Jobs that the robots are not really doing, but could easily take over if given the chance' category, I submit for your consideration the 'job' of Entertainment Rreporter. Take a look at the video below, (yes, it is from The Onion, but don't let that unduly influence your opinion), and then ask yourself honestly if robots could indeed replace all manner of entertainment industry 'journalists': (RSS and email subscribers will need to click through)
iInterviewer: Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola Talk Their New Movie, Inevitable Deaths
Not that bad, right? And if you leave out the Onion's need to make the interview more of a gag than a true reflection of the typically horrible and banal celebrity interview - 'How did it feel to work with such a great cast?', then I think you can pretty easily see that a robot, (and not even that powerful a robot), could step in for what passes for the in-depth and biting reporting that most entertainment shows pay high-priced human talent to produce.
I know what you're thinking - this is a goof, it's the Onion after all, and I'll never get back the approximate three minutes I've spent reading this post.
All of those reactions are fair and valid. At least the 'lost three minutes of your life part.'
But if you're still hanging in there with me on this, here's the payoff.
It does not matter what industry, job title, function, or process you are involved in. If what you do is easily repeatable, if the people that do the job are pretty much indistinguishable, and if it doesn't really matter who does the job, only that it gets done - then you or your job is a candidate for the impending robot uprising.
We laugh at the robot interviewing the actors. Until we realize a human reporter would have asked the very same questions.
And not been as funny.
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