Americans are in denial about robots coming to take their jobs
Americans can see the robot-job apocalypse coming, but they choose to be in deep denial about it.
About two-thirds of Americans expect that in 50 years robots will do "much of the work" currently done by humans, according to a newly released study from the Pew Research Center.
We're not too worried about it tho. A whopping 80% of those surveyed by Pew said that they believe their job will exist in 50 years.
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Despite our collective denial, the prospect of an increasingly automated society -- think driverless cars, drone delivery and robots that can do manual labor -- has caused serious concern about how people will make a living in the future.
The Pew study reflects a growing realization that future technology poses serious questions about the future economy.
But here's the catch -- very few people expect that they will be out of work due to a robot.
"Yet even as most Americans expect significant levels of workforce and job automation to occur over the next 50 years, most of today’s workers express confidence that their own jobs or occupations will not be impacted to a substantial degree," wrote Aaron Smith, associate director of research for Pew, in the report.
The survey, conducted in the summer of 2015, surveyed 2,001 adults.
The prospect of a futuristic society in which humans just aren't needed to do regular tasks has caused concern among economists. A widely cited 2013 study from Oxford University found that roughly half of all U.S. jobs are at a high risk of disappearing due to advancing technology in the next twenty years.
It's not just robots that can lift things or fly them to our doorstep. The development of artificial intelligence has led to programs that can interact with humans and understand their requests.
Advanced projects such as IBM's Watson are now working as hotel concierges even beating our best Jeopardy players.
There's two basic schools of thought on how this will impact society.
Futurist Ray Kurzweil, who is also the head of engineering at Google, could be considered among the optimists. He believes that replacing a worker with a robot -- for example lets say a UPS delivery person -- frees that person up to pursue other activities that will have a greater benefit on society.
"We are going to have new types of jobs creating new types of dollars that don’t exist yet and that has been the trend," Kurzweil said in an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. "We will be creating more profound music, literature, science, technology."
The pessimists aren't so sure. While the economy has seen examples of major labor shifts after periods of technological progress -- the move away from farming and to industrialized society is the most common example -- others fear that our world won't adapt so well this time around.
That has led some to ask whether it will even be necessary for humans to have jobs at all.
One plan suggests that all citizens be given a basic minimum income to ensure that they can live without working.
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Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
