Are we going to lose jobs to the 'robots'

No one knows for definite, we are getting some extreme views on both sides – from slaves to the robots to robots as slaves to us. The answer, like a lot of things, is probably somewhere in the middle, but there will be change. There are those who are calling this a fourth industrial revolution (Schwab, 2016 see the link at the bottom); there is probably a lot of truth in this, the German government is looking at Industrie 4.0 announced in 2011 integrating ICT with industry - the videos from various organisations below can explain this more easily than I can.





We can see changes around us in the way we buy things, booking holidays on-line, ordering groceries online and the rise of Amazon to buy goods as well as books.

By Clockready (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

Is my job is safe? 

Arguably traditional automation has replaced low skilled or 3 Ds jobs (dirty, dangerous and demanding physically), but what about now? There  seems to be a suggestion that the more creative jobs would be safer from automation and that the retail and administrative jobs are at risk.  So are medical staff and legal professional safe? Short term probably, but systems such as IBM’s Watson are making that a little more uncertain. So is it this creative bit that makes the difference? Well that is being weaken by the ‘robotic’ article writers than are starting to appear, and being published, to a certain extent there maybe some overlap with the legal role, through the requirement of presenting evidence in the most effective way for its audience.



Medical staff must be safe surely, well DaVinci robots (see below) have been around for a while now under the control of a surgeon but what next? There is a long history of expert systems in medicine are they going to get better (no pun intended), systems such as  Watson seems to use yes.

Medical Illustration, Wellcome Images

 

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 4.0, see

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Well perhaps this looks bleak, but  is that because we are in middle (or even the start) of this revolution? Personally I think we will see different roles and roles being redefined; perhaps the ‘robot’ will be the assistant helping to provide the information or sifting the information a bit but final decision will be in human hands. What will happen is change - roles will change, so perhaps the key is think flexibly; to stop demonising these things and think how we can live with the changes.

The opinions are the author's and do not reflect necessarily the views of any organisation the author has any association with.

Problems first and robots

Scott Turner and Gary Hill from the Division of Computing (along with Jonathan Adams from the Division of Engineering on a related project) have been investigating teaching and developing problem solving skills as a first step developing programming skills through the use of LEGO-based robots and graphics based programming.


Work on problem-solving has been on-going in the School of Science and Technology (was School of Applied Sciences) for the last four years looking at the concept of teaching and developing problem-solving first, then programming. The main vehicle for developing the problem-solving skills has been LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits and series of gradually more challenging robot-based tasks.

Lawhead et al (2003) stated that robots “…provide entry level programming students with a physical model to visually demonstrate concepts” and “the most important benefit of using robots in teaching introductory courses is the focus provided on learning language independent, persistent truths about programming and programming techniques. Robots readily illustrate the idea of computation as interaction”. Synergies can be made with our work and those one on pre-object programming and simulation of robots for teaching programming as a visual approach to the teaching of the widely used programming language  Java.

The main benefits that the students stated of this approach was they  believe robots provide a method to visually and physically see the outcome of a problem. The approach taken the module has been visually-orientated. The appropriateness of this seems to be borne out by the student comments. Student satisfaction  for a module based around this approach is over 92%. One of the comments made was that the linking of the problem-solving robot task and the programming assignment was liked. This feedback is similar to that reported by other authors when teaching programming using robots (Williams et al, 2003).  There is enough scope in this approach to have different levels of complexity/functionality within an assignment task offering a basic ‘pass’ level for a particular task, but also the scope for those students that desire more of a challenge.


Reference
Lawhead PB, Bland CG, Barnes DJ, Duncan ME, Goldweber M, Hollingsworth RG,
Schep M (2003), A Road Map for Teaching Introductory Programming Using
LEGO Mindstorms Robots SIGCSE Bulletin, 35(2): 191-201.
Williams AB (2003) The Qualitative Impact of Using LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot
to Teach Computer Engineering IEEE Trans. Educ. Vol. 46 pp 206.


Publications

• Turner S (2014) "Greenfoot in Problem solving and Artificial Intelligence" CEISEE 2014 University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu China 24-25 April 2014

• Turner S (2013) Junkbots – it is not one thing! Engage 2013 27-28th September 2013
• Hill G and Turner S (2013) Electronic Online Marking Of Software Assignments (EOMOSA) CEISIE 2013 13th -14th May 2013 Milan
• Turner S (2013) Junkbots HEA STEM: Annual Learning and Teaching Conference 2013: Where practice and pedagogy meet 17 Apr 2013 - 18 Apr 2013
• Kariyawasam K., A., Turner S., Hill G. (2012) "Is it Visual? The importance of a Problem Solving Module within a Computing course", Computer Education, Volume 10, Issue 166, May 2012, pp. 5-7, ISSN: 1672-5913. 
• Turner S (2011) Neural Nets Robotics Workshop. Bot Shop! University of Derby, 28th October 2011.

• Hill G, Turner S (2011) Chapter 7 Problems First Software Industry-Oriented Education Practices and Curriculum Development: Experiences and Lessons edited by Drs. Matthew Hussey, Xiaofei Xu and Bing Wu. ISBN: 978-1609607975IGI Global June 2011
• Kariyawasam K and Turner (2011) "Is it Visual? problem solving evaluation" Learning Global,University of Northampton 11th May 2011
• Turner S and Hill G (2010) "Innovative use of Robots and Graphical Programming in Software Education" Computer Education Ser. 117 No. 9 pp 54-57 ISSN: 1672-5913
• Turner S, Hill G, Adams J (2009) "Robots in problem solving in programming" 9th 1-day Teaching of Programming Workshop, University of Bath, 6th April 2009.  
• Turner S and Hill G(2008) "Robots within the Teaching of Problem-Solving" ITALICS vol. 7 No. 1 June 2008 pp 108-119 ISSN 1473-7507 
• Turner S and Adams J (2008) "Robots and Problem Solving" 9th Higher Education Academy-ICS Annual Conference, Liverpool Hope University, 26th August - 28th August 2008. pp. 14 ISBN 978-0-9559676-0-3. 
• Adams, J. and Turner, S., (2008) Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Computing and Engineering students: the use of robots as a development tool Creating Contemporary Student Learning Environments 2008, Northampton, UK. 
• Adams, J. and Turner, S., (2008) Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Engineers: process or product? International Conference on Innovation, Good Practice and Research in Engineering Education 2008, Loughborough, UK. 
• Adams, J., Turner, S., Kaczmarczyk, S., Picton, P. and Demian, P.,(2008). Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Engineers: findings of an action research project involving robots International Conference on Engineering Education ICEE 2008, Budapest, Hungary. 
• Turner S and Hill G(2007) Robots in Problem-Solving and Programming 8th Annual Conference of the Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, 28th - 30th August 2007, pp 82-85 ISBN 0-978-0-9552005-7-1 
• Turner S (2007) Developing problem-solving teaching material based upon Microsoft Robotics Studio. 8th Annual Conference of the Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, 28th - 30th August 2007 pp 151 ISBN 0-978-0-9552005-7-1 
• Turner S (2007) Developing problem-solving teaching materials based upon Microsoft Robotics Studio. Innovative Teaching Development Fund Dissemination Day 1st March 2007 Microsoft:London 
• Turner S and Hill G (2006) The Inclusion Of Robots Within The Teaching Of Problemsolving: Preliminary Results Proceedings of 7th Annual Conference of the ICS HE Academy Trinity College, Dublin, 29th - 31st August 2006 Proceedings pg 241-242 ISBN 0-9552005-3-9 

Will machines replace people in the workplace? Are we creating our own destruction?

Originally posted on: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/will-machines-replace-people-in-the-workplace-are-we-creating-our-own-destruction-

• Monday 10th August 2015
  
  Dr ​​Scott Turner​, Associate Professor in Computing and Immersive Technologies, gives his view on machines replacing people at work...
  "Some futurists such as Ray Kurzweil at Google (Devlin, 2015)  have been predicting robots will reach human levels of intelligence by 2029, raising concerns about job losses. This time the concerns have shifted a little from where traditionally machines have replaced people in jobs - the dangerous and the dull roles - to more white-collared roles such as analytical jobs, journalism and online marketing. In 2011 (Gabbatt, 2011) Watson, an artificial intelligence system developed by IBM, won on the games shown Jeopardy! then went on to be used for medical diagnostic use.
  Before we start imagining the apocalyptic visions of The Matrix and Terminator; this is not new. Artificial Intelligences (AI) techniques are widely used now. Credit card companies use AI based technologies to detect potential fraudulent spending patterns, there is a long history of AI being used to dig into medical data to gain new insights and Amazon's recommendations are based around AI techniques.
  Potential jobs losses due to new technologies are not new news. One example is the typist pool, another web-developers. In terms of job losses, due to AI, there is not a consensus (Elkins, 2014) for example believes there will be a 30 per cent loss in jobs, other experts suggest a zero net-loss, and others even an increase in new roles (for humans). Robots in the care industry is a potential growth area: robots do not replace carers, instead acting as assistants. These 'social robots' act as companions, for example two robots for the home Buddy (Indiegoo, 2015) and JIBO (JIBO, 2015). 
  Countries such as Germany and USA are taking steps to increase their industrial competitiveness, via Industry 4.0 (Deloitte, 2014), which is based around taking measures that integrating AI and communications into their production and logistics chain.  These technologies are disruptive but there is no evidence, yet, that they will bring about our destruction but we do need to manage their introduction."