Challenges of Rapid Automation:

In this last article on automation in the workplace, the focus is on the human cost of automation’s  latest push into the workplace.

In the previous set of articles, we’ve focused on Robots’ increasing presence in healthcare, transportation and the military.

Questions are being asked. “What if automation replaces workers too quickly?” and “How will we retrain an entire industry’s workforce? Finally: Where will the new jobs be?

In his (quite timely) article on Politico, Kevin Baker notes that these same questions have been asked since the  late 1920’s. In the following years, new mechanisms have fostered new jobs, and new opportunities.

However, he goes on to note that this time may be different- as change may be coming faster than society’s ability to absorb it:

…while our anxieties about automation might be old-fangled, we may indeed be entering a new frontier.

Here is the full article (well worth the read).