One man and his dog

According to a study by researchers at the auspicious Oxford University in league with the Consultants Deloitte there will be a potentially significant shift in employment over the next twenty years.

Based on my experience of the last twenty years what else could we expect, what with the decimation of traditional heavy industries, redundancies in previously thought jobs for life and even a thinning out of the Professions.

The latest research predicts that more than a third of current jobs in the United Kingdom are at risk of being taken over by a robot.

I am not surprised by this. My generation were brought up with vivid Science Fiction visions of a robot race. The Laws of Robotics gave some comfort although these were of course only in writing and any robot dead set on mischief would surely overlook these . Scary and  sobering a though it was although balanced out by the exciting prospect that if this worse case scenario did not occur then our lives would be so much easier thanks to a subservient robot population doing all of the boring chores and daily tedium.

Artificial Intelligence has developed at lighting speed in my lifetime and seemingly with an even more rapid pace in just recent years. The robots of my childhood were clunky and chunky, a bit like dustbins with fairy lights but gradually these came to be more humanoid in shape, dimensions and behaviour even back to the Cybermen on Doctor Who and now with a very lifelike demeanour and attitude.

The Oxford University academics Michael Osborne and Carl Frey calculated how susceptible to automation each UK job is based on nine key skills required to perform it;

social perceptiveness,
negotiation,
persuasion,
assisting and caring for others,
originality,
fine arts,
finger dexterity,
manual dexterity and
the need to work in a cramped work space.

The research was originally carried out using detailed job data from the United States O*NET employment database. The analysis for UK jobs was made by adapting the findings to corresponding occupations in the UK based on Office for National Statistics job classifications. For the purpose of the UK study, some US occupations were merged. In these cases, the probabilities were calculated as weighted averages of the probabilities of automation for each US occupation within the group.

Some job names have been edited for clarity. Where average salary has been mentioned, the median has been used. Figures are not available for occupations in the military, or for politicians. This may excite the conspiracy theorists. If robots did take over not only our jobs but our lives then an army would be needed to destroy them and politicians to well,.....I'm not really sure about their role in such a scenario.

So who are the potential losers, the fairly safe and those whose jobs remain firmly in human hands?.

Social workers, nurses, therapists and psychologists are among the least likely occupations to be taken over as assisting and caring for others, which involves empathy, is a crucial part of the job.

Roles requiring employees to think on their feet and come up with creative and original ideas, for example artists, designers or engineers, hold a significant advantage in the face of automation.

Additionally, occupations involving tasks that require a high degree of social intelligence and negotiating skills, like managerial positions, are considerably less at risk from machines according to the study.

Your job is safer if you negotiate, help others or come up with original ideas.

In contrast, while certain sales jobs like telemarketers and bank clerks may involve interactive tasks they do not necessarily need a high degree of social intelligence, leaving them exposed to automation.

As more advanced industrial robots gain improved senses and the ability to make more coordinated finger and hand movements to manipulate and assemble objects, they will be able to perform a wider range of increasingly complex manual tasks.

However, manipulation in unstructured environments — like the tasks that must be performed by a house cleaner — are still beyond the scope of automation for the foreseeable future.

Sophisticated algorithms are challenging a number of office and administrative support roles, particularly in legal and financial services.

Machines are already beginning to take on a number of tasks carried out by legal professionals by scanning thousands of documents to assist in pre-trial research.

It is said that the factory of the future will employ just one man and one dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the man if he fiddles with the robotised machines.

Office outing of the future

As for my own job. Well, I had better start digging that bunker and stockpiling supplies for my new role as Chartered Surveyor to the Human Struggle against the robot masters. After all, it is predicted that I may have a lot more time on my hands.

Take the test.......http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941  I await your call to join me.

(First written in January 2016)