By Ida B. Torn

Technology has had me on a tear as of late. Everywhere I look, computers and robots are competing with and taking jobs from humans. I do not consider myself to be an alarmist, but I am beginning to fear that the human race will be on the endangered species list in my lifetime, a sentiment that is shared by Stephen Hawking, who indicated in an interview with BBC that it may be time to put the brakes on the development of artificial intelligence.

GE seems to be on the forefront of cloud-based and robotic technology. It has a commercial out right now that follows a young girl who develops technology throughout her life to do all of her work for her. The first time I saw the commercial, the thought came to my mind that GE is glorifying laziness. Now, when I see the commercial, a future-earth version plays in my mind where a robot develops a human being and brags about how it trained the human to do all of its work.

Thanks to technology, there are so many mundane tasks that we don’t have to worry about anymore. We no longer need to worry about forgetting things on our to-do list or, better yet, we don’t have to worry about to-do lists at all. Your refrigerator can do your shopping for you and drones can deliver your groceries right to your door. Whirlpool has developed a washing machine that can connect to your Amazon account and order its own laundry supplies. And if you own a nest thermostat, it can tell the washing machine not to operate during peak energy times. As a bonus, the washing machine can donate all of the change that falls out of your pockets during the wash cycle to Habitat for Humanity.

I recently read an article about a brick-laying robot designed by engineers in Perth, Australia. The robot can accurately lay bricks at a rate of 1,000 bricks per hour. The engineers tout the robot’s superiority over manual laborers in that it doesn’t need to sleep, eat or take breaks. In May of this year, the Pentagon showed off its self-driving ship, which can travel up to 10,000 nautical miles on its own. According to the website trucks.com, it is anticipated that self-driving freight trucks will be on highways in 3 to 4 years.

KPMG has a commercial that features an eatery called Eatsa.  The restaurant chain prides itself on service with the lack of human interaction. You place your order on an electronic device and your food magically appears in your own personalized cubby hole. Out of curiosity, I looked up the restaurant and was pleased  to see that there was a “Now Hiring” link on its website. Sadly, there wasn’t one single posting for kitchen staff, but if you are an engineer or have marketing experience, Eatsa has a job for you!

According to a recent article on Forbes.com, even white collar jobs in fields such as healthcare, insurance, architecture, journalism, finance, education, legal and law enforcement aren’t safe from computer and robot take-overs. The exponential growth in technological advancements has prompted some business leaders, such as Richard Branson, to foresee a time when governments will have to establish a universal basic income (paying human beings simply for existing) due to the loss of jobs to technology.

I don’t know how this all sits with you, but each time I see one of these commercials or read about technological advances, I am reminiscent of the famous Dylan Thomas poem and urge you to rage, rage against the dying of the light!

Watch the commercials: