HOW TO ROBOT-PROOF YOUR CAREER:

Strategies for Dealing with the Coming Robot Apocalypse

Revolution in Workplace Automation

D.J. G E LNERby

A mericans are victims of our own success.

Recent job reports illustrate as much. According to the Washington Post, an underwhelming 88,000 jobs were created in March 2013, and while unem-ployment fell 0.1%, most of that decrease was at-tributable to people dropping out of the workforce because they couldn’t find employment. Perhaps “being forced out” is a better phrasing, as “drop-ping out” implies that these folks had some choice in their predicament.

This isn’t a Democratic problem or a Republican problem. It’s a problem that can’t be summed up in a single word, though I’m going to do my best to try:

Automation.

Machines. Robots. Call them what you will. From Rosie the Housekeeper to the Terminator, from Robbie the Robot to Commander Data, popular science fiction has always been fascinated by the potential for robots to both help and ruin our so-ciety.

Despite the disparate motives of the machines list-ed above, we can agree on one thing: these robots were designed to do things that were once the ex-clusive territory of humans.

Unfortunately for so many workers today, truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction.

Earlier this year, CBS’s 60 Minutes reported on all of the seemingly magical new tasks that robots are undertaking, from guiding and pushing goods through a grid system in a warehouse, to helping

move items from room to room in hospitals, to printing entire airplane wings using composite ma-terials. Every one of these jobs used to require mul-tiple humans. In the report, Quiet Logistics CEO Bruce Welty marvels at robots that move goods around a warehouse using algorithms and QC codes for guidance, and proudly proclaims that each robot does the work of 1.5 human workers.

It’s sad for an economy that became the strongest in the world in the aftermath of World War II based on an industrial economy that kept a lot of people in either manufacturing or manufacturing support positions.

Think about it; up until now, our technology has been just good enough to require a small army of people to communicate with overseas suppliers, or aid in handling paperwork, reports, and scheduling travel and meetings.

All of these functions are increasingly being facil-itated by the internet and mobile apps. Apps espe-cially have an incentive to simplify complex inter-actions to their core functions for optimum use on a smaller screen.

Think your line of work is safe? Who would’ve thought that in 2013, computer software would be answering customer complaints, handling the ma-jority of our day-to-day banking transactions, and even reducing the need for meter maids by central-izing parking meters in one location on any given block?

“Oh, but robots couldn’t possibly take my white col-lar job!” That’s what thousands of lawyers thought, too, as new document recognition software made the first several culls through large legal document review projects, decreasing the need for human power on any of them.

Even something as seemingly personal as medi-cine has the potential to be outsourced to doctors in countries with far lower costs than the United States. Down the road, is it so far-fetched to think that there will eventually be some combination of

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hardware and software that is able to scan, diagnose, and treat illness without the need for a human at all?

The Two Key Functions Robots Can Perform Right Now (or “Warning Signs that Your Job Might be in Danger”)

Robots currently perform tasks that are:

• Repetitive; and • Predictable

Repetition has never been an issue with functional-ity for robots; for decades, robots have been working on sequential, mechanical tasks on assembly lines alongside human workers.

No, the true bottleneck to robot functionality has become predictability, though with more advanced algorithms, faster processors, and internet connec-tivity, it’s a bottleneck that’s widening by the day.

For example, The New York Times recently ran an article about robots that use input from their hu-man counterparts to improve overall productivity in a variety of factory settings. Workers had a three-pronged input (they could tell the robot was per-forming a task “well,” “poorly,” or “neutrally”) and robots “learned” how best to perform on the job based on feedback from their human counterparts. While such a move improved productivity per work-er, one could argue that such a result stems from the need for fewer workers as such robots become more prevalent.

As scientists and programmers are better able to pre-dict a variety of behaviors, the need for actual hu-man labor will decrease dramatically across a wide variety of fields that currently seem to be immune.

How to Robot Proof Your Career

Such a revelation may seem scary to someone in a field potentially ripe for cannibalization by the re-lentless, gnashing metal teeth of Johnny Robot.

Fortunately, there are a few tips that you can take

right now to robot-proof your career that don’t involve taking on Arnold Schwarzenegger-like machines in reckless combat.

Creativity is Key

As much as the programmers and roboticists tout the ability of robots to perform a wide variety of tasks, the limits of predictability only extend so far. While it may be a novelty for a robot to compose a sympho-ny or write a screenplay using well-worn tropes and other elements of composition, there’s still a kernel of human creativity and ingenuity that ignites the hu-man mind that programmers are having trouble rep-licating in robots.

It then seems like the arts are, for the moment, a rela-tively safe haven. Even if there comes a day where ro-bots can compose legitimate works of art, one would think that there would be a niche market for human artists to compete alongside the latest mechanical-ly-created masterpiece, if for no other reason than the subjective tastes of consumers.

Of course, a career in the arts is fraught with uncer-tainty and other potential pitfalls, but if you’ve ever been artistically-inclined at all, it might not be a bad idea to dust off the paintbrush set and explore your artistic leanings, not necessarily as a commercial ex-ercise, but to stay in touch with the creative part of your brain to stay a step ahead of the grey menace.

Become a Master of Connections

Master marketing guru Seth Godin is fond of calling the new stage of the economy that we’re currently en-tering the “Connection Economy,” where connecting others with ideas that spread is the foundation for people to make their “art,” or true calling in life.

For our purposes, this model works well for outrun-ning the robot horde. Are you the one who reads case studies in other industries, looking for ideas that you can bring back to your team? Do you seek out peo-ple that are doing interesting creative work in the hopes that they could potentially add something to

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your business or connect you with someone who will down the road?

This goes well beyond the type of cocktail party “net-working” that’s been preached for years, and extends almost into the realm of politics. The exception is that in politics, there’s some anticipation that a favor will be met with a favor. Seth is always quick to point out that you shouldn’t expect anything directly in return, other than the satisfaction of helping others, which should build your personal value over time and lead others to want to connect you with need-ed counterparts.

Even the Robots Need Masters

Let’s say it’s 2050. Millions of robots take a nanosec-ond to cycle their memory banks during their usual, grueling twenty-four hour shifts, constantly churn-ing away and grinding down their parts and proces-sors.

As we rely more and more on robots to perform any number of tasks, there’s going to be an increasing need for those who can program the robots with fan-cy new algorithms, as well as those who can service the robots. While it’s certainly true that we could create a cadre of self-servicing robots, it would likely be in our best interests not to do so, if for no oth-er reason than to prevent one haywire servicer from outfitting a small team of its peers with industrial cutting lasers for hands...or worse.

Humans need to be present in the process at some level to tell the robots what to do, and as robots take on more and more tasks across specialties, it’s easy to see why “travel search algorithm programmer” or “industrial fabrication algorithm programmer” would become specialized fields, ripe for enterpris-ing humans to set up shop in and exploit.

Embrace the Revolution: “Let’s Go Bowling”

Those programming and maintenance jobs aren’t going to tide everyone over, though. Odds are that eventually, we’ll become a country where there are a lot of people without a whole lot to do.

This arrangement raises all sorts of socio-econom-ic and cultural questions better served in another article. But one industry that caters to both “over-worked, over-stressed robot master” and “bored, unemployed victim of the robot revolution” alike  is leisure.

People are simply going to need things to do. While some will take the opportunity to pursue their pas-sions, there are a lot of people who will want to enjoy their free time by engaging in some quality R&R.

The bright side is that as technology advances, so, too, do the possibilities for leisure activities. Think about something like Star Trek: The Next Genera-tion’s holodeck, a room that can be filled with ho-lograms that can simulate pretty much any scenario that one can imagine. Or the David Fincher mov-ie The Game, where people can put themselves in elaborate spy thrillers without having to be obscene-ly wealthy.

How the unemployed masses will obtain resources to engage in these pursuits is another matter entirely. Perhaps robots will advance the standard of living so much that reasonable food and shelter will be avail-able for all, making all income effectively discretion-ary. Or maybe our economy will develop to the point where people buy robots that, in turn, earn for them. This model leads to the final point:

A Broad New Frontier of Opportunity?

Another crisis that America is dealing with at pres-ent is the lack of innovation in our society. Sure, the latest and greatest new smartphones and tablets come out with almost metronomic regularity, but there hasn’t been a truly disruptive new technolo-gy released since the dawn of the internet age in the mid nineties.

When such landscape-altering industries do arise, though, there have always been those savvy enough to benefit from the shift. Though the outlook might seem bleak at the moment, history tells us that thou-sands of potential new money-making opportunities

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are sure to arise from the advent of high-tech robots across numerous fields.

The keys, as always, are to:

• Stay Flexible: don’t dogmatically cling to a career that has the potential to be gobbled up by technology without any warning. Constantly explore new ideas, and put your creatively-advanced human mind to work.

• Be Willing to Learn New Skills: If there’s any aspect of repetitiveness or predictability to your cur-rent job, it would be a good time to try to take on new projects that require more creativity, or that cut across fields in a way that isn’t easily replicable by a repetitive, predictable robot.

• Seize Opportunity When it Knocks: This is always the trickiest part of any new enterprise, but timing can be (and often is) everything at the dawn of a new industry. Thousands of people made money off of now-defunct sites at the start of the internet boom because they were in the right place at the right time. Keep your eyes and ears open, stay abreast of current developments in your field, and when you think the time is right, don’t be afraid to make “the leap” into an exciting new venture.

The robots are coming. It’s not a paranoid Chicken Little-inspired fantasy or delusion; they’re already starting to take our jobs at an alarming rate. With some preparation, insight, and a little bit of luck, you’ll be ready to take on the robotic horde, and thrive where so many others are left grasping for stray crumbs, or in this case, nuts and bolts.

D.J. Gelner is a freelance and fiction writer based in St. Louis, Missouri. Check out his books on his Amazon Author Page. For more of his columns, click over to his blog, At Wit’s End. E-mail him at djgelbooks@gmail.com, and follow him on twitter @djgelner.

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