Automation is expected to bring about significant benefits to economies and businesses across the globe. However, this will not happen overnight. A Universal Robots report indicates that the ultimate potential of automation can only be achieved when humans work hand in hand with technology.
Recently, the world has been experiencing continuous developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and machine learning. These have placed humans on the edge of the new automation realm. Computers and robots today are capable of performing a vast range of redundant physical tasks more cheaply and better than humans. Still, they have become more advanced meaning they can accomplish cognitive tasks that were previously difficult to automate.
These include sensing of emotion, making implied judgments and driving. Automation is going to transform daily tasks for everyone at the workplace whether they are in the mining, banking, welding, fashion design industries, and even CEOs. The question that lingers in many people’s minds presently is; how long will the world wait until the workplace experiences the reality of automation technologies?
Again, how will they impact productivity and employment in the economy across the world? Universal Robots has been researching extensively on automation technologies and their probable effects. They recently released a report detailing some of their core findings which indicates that automation of various tasks can be instrumental in allowing businesses to enhance performance by promoting accuracy and enhancing speed and quality.
Additionally, it can help accomplish results which surpass human capabilities. Automation promotes productivity and this has been so ever since the first industrial robot was introduced in the market. When companies are experiencing slow productivity growth, automation can come in handy to enhance economic prosperity and development.
What’s more, it can play a major role in counteracting the effects of a depreciating population within the working age in various countries around the world.
· The Impact of Automation on Productivity
According to the https://www.universal-robots.com/: outline modeling, automation will increase productivity growth across the globe by approximately 2.4 percent. The appropriate way of analyzing the probable effects of automation would be through individual tasks as opposed to complete occupations. Each occupation consists of a variety of tasks which have varying automation requirements. According to currently illustrated technologies, minimal occupations approximated to be not more than 5 percent can be fully automated.
Even then, at least all occupations have a slight percentage of automation probability since some of its tasks can be automated. Universal Robots estimates that approximately half of all tasks companies pay people to execute across the world could the automated by modifying currently illustrated technologies and this amounts to trillions of dollars in wages.
· Automatable Tasks
Physical tasks in highly predictable and structured environments are more susceptible to automation. Other tasks include data processing and collection. In many of the developed countries, these tasks amount to 51 percent of tasks in the economy and this account to approximately $2.8 trillion in wages. These tasks are common within the retail trade, food service, and accommodation, and manufacturing sectors.
It is important to understand that not only low wage and low skill tasks are candidates for automation, high paying, and high skill tasks can be automated as well. Since processes are revolutionized by individual task automation, humans will execute activities that complement the functions executed by machines and vice versa.
It will, of course, be some time before all businesses adopt automation despite the existence of technical potential. Universal Robots opines that it may be years before the impact of automation is clearly felt. This means that automation pace, as well as its effects on employees, will differ across various occupations, tasks, expertise, and wage levels.
Various factors will play a role in the extent and automation pace. They include the current evolution of technological capabilities, labor competition including supply, demand, and experts dynamics, technology cost, performance advantages beyond and including labor expense savings, and regulatory and social acknowledgment.
According to Universal Robots, almost a half of today’s tasks will be automated in the far or near future depending on a variety of factors and economic conditions.
While the impact of automation may be slow across many economies and sectors, they could be rapid for companies whose sectors are interrupted by competitors through automation or individual employees whose tasks are automated.