There has been much chatter on the internet around how the increasing sophistication of humanoid robots such as Honda’s Asimo or Nanyang Technological University’s Nadine means that many people will face losing their jobs. Countering this have been people who have pointed out that the same was said when, for example, James Hargreaves introduced his Spinning Jenny in 1764, threatening the jobs of handweavers, and Henry Ford designed his first assembly line in 1913. However, it is not really the human-faced robots of Asimov, Lang and Dick that should be worrying us: it is far more likely to be the complex mesh of devices of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The argument for the IoT and robots not replacing humans goes that humans are adaptive; no matter what the changes have been in the past, we have always adapted to deal with them and have found new things to work on.

But will this still be the case? We have an expanding population – over 7 billion people on the planet and growing – with certain Maslowian base physiological needs to deal with, such as procuring food, water and other aspects of a basic human life. In Maslow’s original pyramid of needs, ‘employment’ falls under ‘safety and security’ – the second level, just one up from the base physiological needs.¹

The problem starts to become apparent when we consider how best to meet the basic needs of the world’s population. We can put a proportion of them to work at little pay – farming, pumping water, gathering fuel to provide warmth – but why do this? The largest, most productive farms on the planet employ very few people, as people have been automated out of the equation. Solar-powered water pumps with remote monitoring can be put in place by one or two people, leading to a need for maintenance only once a year or less. Solar heating, ground heat, heat pumps – you name it, warmth can be provided without much need for human involvement. All of this automation is being done using low-cost, commoditised IoT devices, performing small tasks that can be carried out time after time with no chance of them being done differently due to boredom, illness or even malicious intent.

Another example of how the IoT is impacting the need for workers is farming. Before the industrial revolution in the UK, the predominant mode of work was agricultural. As industry grew, workers moved from the countryside to the new cities in search of predictable paid work. Farm sizes grew as land was brought together under larger landowners, and efficiencies were improved. The introduction of steam power, followed by the internal combustion engine, revolutionised farming to the point where only a small number of people are still employed in the farming arena.

The revolution continues: in the US, the massive grain farms are moving toward full automation. Drones are being used to monitor crops, looking for pest infestations and for signs that intervention is required to better feed or otherwise maintain the crops. Other drones can then apply just enough pesticide to deal with any issues. IoT devices in the fields monitor humidity levels and trigger the watering of the crops. Fully automated harvesters, controlled via GPS and with bi-directional data feeds, allow grain buyers to monitor the quality of the grain and bid directly on the crop that is coming through. Farming is well on the way to becoming an employee-free zone – not through replacing people with automatons, but by automating them out of the whole environment through the use of small devices.

Maybe it is by moving up the needs hierarchy that we find where the jobs are – and will remain. How about fulfilling Maslow’s security and safety needs? The use of meshed CCTV, while seen by many as intrusive, can provide better security for people. Such automated video monitoring can then be combined with pattern matching of communication feeds such as emails, instant messaging, phone calls and so on, to lead to higher levels of citizen safety – all with minimal human intervention. Even when it comes to investigating crime, more is being done through automation and the use of IoT devices, making police less important in the overall process. That security of employment? Forget it – it has not existed for a couple of generations.

What about the needs Maslow suggests around belonging and love (the third level of need on the pyramid)? This is likely to remain very much a human arena, yet apart from the (pretty much automated) growing of roses and production of Valentine’s cards and chocolate, there is still not much in the way of jobs that the human race can rush to as automation takes over.

However, a big part of belonging and love revolves around the leisure and tourist industries – going to places with a loved one for shared experiences. Surely, here are lots of opportunities for continued work?

In Japan, there is already a hotel that has been totally automated. A robot with a human face welcomes you and provides you with the information and keys required. In the background, a whole raft of IoT devices then tracks you as you move through the hotel – turning on the lights and TV when you enter your room, setting the heating levels just as you want them. Food is provided through automated machines. Cleaning is carried out by industrial robots – without that human face.

Even getting to a destination is getting close to being human-free. When was the last time you spoke to someone about booking travel and accommodation – or did you do it through your computer? And did that computer then use a raft of back-end IoT devices to track what was happening and keep you informed via an app on your smartphone? Probably.

We could automate pretty much any human out of the travel process through autonomous taxis, self-driving trains, even pilotless planes. Automated systems can ensure that we are on time for travel connections – or advise directly on alternatives should we need them, using IoT devices embedded in the different transport systems to ensure that the optimal solution is chosen.

We seem to be running out of Maslow’s options. The next level up is about the needs around esteem – how does being employed or not affect this? Directly, in the majority of cases. In order to afford the car, watch, house – whatever it is that makes a statement – money is needed. In order to have the money, some form of employment is generally required (heirs and heiresses excluded). However, if all the jobs are being removed from around us, we cannot get the money; we cannot gain the material items that provide us with that feeling of self-esteem and the confidence that comes with it.

And so, we seem to be cut off from the top of Maslow’s pyramid – there is little chance for self-actualisation.

Unless, of course, a completely different approach is taken. Governments around the world are still talking about ‘full employment’ as if this is a target that can be reached. Even if it could, is it now the right target to be aiming for? How brave would it be for a government to make a statement along the lines of aiming for full employment for those who want it, and a universal wage for those who don’t.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), as of November 2016, there were 31.8 million people in work in the UK, of which 8.6 million were working part-time. 8.8m were not in employment, of which 1.6m were classified as being unemployed.² What do these 31.8 million workers do? What proportion are in drudge jobs that could be automated away immediately? How long before semi-skilled and then skilled jobs start to be automated? This is the question that should be asked – and plans should be drawn up not only to allow this to happen, but to accelerate the move toward it.

The impact on the economy of such automation via the IoT and robotics would be huge. Massive automation would improve efficiency and effectiveness. By driving human error out of many processes and getting rid of the cost of human labour, the resulting goods could compete with any goods created anywhere else on the planet – once the costs of land for the factory and the IoT/robotics devices needed to create such automation were covered. 24-hour working would be possible – without shift working and all the social and health problems that brings for humans. Data would become the lifeblood of the total economy – it would be in everyone’s best interests to share data rather than attempt to hide it as it may have ‘hidden value’.

This is not just about low-skilled manual jobs either. There is pretty much no need for humans to be in the financial trading process any longer. Everything is already driven by algorithms; deals are fully automated. The besuited high-flyers are only getting paid because they are the human face of the transaction. That face adds no value to the deal – and it has been shown time and time again that humans betting on the market are generally no better than average and often worse than chance.

But what would be done with the people who lose their jobs? They cannot be thrown on the scrap heap; they cannot be pushed into the expensive and unsustainable safety blanket of social support through government handouts.

Companies that have taken the plunge and have decided to replace workers with robots and automation driven through the IoT will have much higher profits – some of which will need to be ploughed into the next generation of automation; but also profits where the amount left over is enough to push investors from being super-rich to unimaginably rich. Governments could choose to tax them massively – or choose to congratulate them and give them tax breaks, as long as they help out in what would be the relatively easy, but unusual, area of paying people not to work directly for them.

These companies can afford to ‘employ’ people not to work for them. Instead, they can pay people to work for the community – anything from cleaning up local spaces and working with other people who need help, to allowing time to explore and use their more creative side. The company that is paying can choose the sort of activity the person should carry out and even the hours that the person has to do the activity for. The type of work that the ‘employees’ carry out can be work that would otherwise have to be covered by the public purse – a win-win for everyone: better public services at a lower cost.

Those who want to have the esteem of material wealth and ownership of statement items can still work in the value-added areas where automation cannot completely replace humans. Design work in areas such as architecture, fashion, automobile interiors and so on are some way away from being automated out of existence. Dealing with transactions between people in the high-end markets, such as the need for relationships in the auction world or identifying and getting hold of the exact item a high-worth person wants still requires a human to be involved.

The problem is that none of these areas can be guaranteed to be irreplaceable as time progresses. As the efficacy of IoT and robotics increases, with greater understanding of the potential for connectivity, human natural language and the capacity to better read the small indicators of a human’s feelings, machines can become far more efficient in dealing with humans – to the point where that efficiency outstrips all but the best humans.

Unless we bite the bullet and come up with a plan for how to deal with this splitting of work between those who do not want to work at all, those who want to work but find themselves being replaced by automation and those who want to work and can find gainful employment, the current groundswell of distrust and dislike for what is seen as an ever-increasing chasm between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ and the perception of a completely out-of-touch political class will continue to fester. In the early 1800s, it was the Luddites who rose up against the machines. Later, the Trade Unions fought against the automation of many aspects of modern work. Full automation where the worker is left out of the equation threatens to cause uprisings of much greater impact – maybe not physical, but certainly political and economic.

Instead, implementing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) – ensuring that there is enough money provided to everyone of working age to cover the base areas of Maslow’s pyramid of needs – starts to provide a platform on which to build a brighter future.

Those who choose not to do anything get the basic needs covered only. Those who want more apply to companies that make increased profits off the back of full automation and get government tax credits because of this. These people then get paid more – but have to put in a certain amount of work to make life better for those who are incapable of working – the young, the old and the disabled. This main mass of ex-workers move from drudge jobs to ones where there is a much greater sense of fulfilment: the knowledge of helping others while being financially secure oneself. Therefore, these people pass through the Maslow pyramid to a point where they can gain self-actualisation.

Those who want to have the added self-esteem find the work that allows them to earn the money they require to meet that need. These people will find life increasingly difficult as time goes on and the capabilities of the IoT and robotics – as shown by the likes of IBM Watson Analytics and da Vinci semi-autonomous robots in the healthcare market – starts to strip away the need for humans in what have been previously seen as being untouchable areas, such as consultants and surgeons.

The human race has reached a fairly major tipping point in its evolution. It can either embrace these changes and make life better for everyone, or turn against such changes and condemn an increasing number of people to working on repetitive tasks that provide them with little or no feelings of achievement – just to say that they have a job.

REFERENCES

1. McLeod, S. (2007, updated 2016) ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need’. Simply Psychology. Available from http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html [27 March 2017]

2. Office for National Statistics (2016) ‘UK labour market: Nov 2016’. Available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/november2016 [27 March 2017].