How will I make an appointment with my financial advisor? Can it say "That
wouldn't be prudent?
Abby
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2021 3:08 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Robots Are Coming for Millions of Blue-Collar
Jobs
Published on
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
byCreators.com
Robots Are Coming for Millions of Blue-Collar Jobs CEOs urgently need
euphemisms to soften the image of their constant hunt for ways to kill jobs
and funnel more money to themselves and top investors.
byJim Hightower
Ford F150 trucks go through robots on the assembly line at the Ford Dearborn
Truck Plant on September 27, 2018 in Dearborn, Michigan. (Photo by Bill
Pugliano/Getty Images) Ford F150 trucks go through robots on the assembly
line at the Ford Dearborn Truck Plant on September 27, 2018 in Dearborn,
Michigan. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
Some people find hunting for sport to be abhorrent, so hunters have come up
with euphemisms to make what they do sound gentler on the ears of the
nonhunting public. For example, animals aren't killed; they're "harvested."
And dead prey is not gutted but "processed."
Corporate America has taken note of this verbal ploy and is now adopting it,
for CEOs urgently need euphemisms to soften the image of their constant hunt
for ways to kill jobs and funnel more money to themselves and top investors.
Their urgency is that they're now pushing a huge new surge in job cuts-this
time targeting college-educated, white-collar professionals! Their weapon is
the same sort of neutron bomb they've used to dispatch millions of
blue-collar workers: robots.
But that term has a very bad reputation, so robots have been relabeled with
a nondescript acronym: RPA, "robotic process automation." These are not your
grandfather's old bots merely doing repetitive mechanical tasks.
Sophisticated automatons armed with artificial intelligence have quietly
moved up the corporate ladder to take over cognitive work that had been the
niche of such highly paid humans as financial analysts, lawyers, engineers,
managers and doctors.
McKinsey, the world's biggest corporate strategy consultancy, calculated in
2019 that the emerging revolution of thinking robotics would displace 37
million U.S. workers by 2030. Now, seeing the current corporate stampede to
impose RPAs on U.S. workplaces, McKinsey analysts have upped their
projection to 45 million job losses by 2030.
This is more than just an incremental extension of a long, slow automation
process. It's a transformative Big Bang, presently ripping through America's
workforce at warp speed with no public or political attention, and most of
the vulnerable employees have no idea of what's coming.
Corporate executives, boards and investors do know, however, for they've
been rushing furtively in the past year or so to implement RPA initiatives.
The New York Times reports that a survey of executives last year found that
nearly 80% of them have already put some forms of RPA in place, with an
additional 16% planning to do so within three years. Yes, that's 96% of
corporate employers. Sales of the new-age automation software are booming,
turning little-known providers like UiPath and Automation Anywhere into
multibillion-dollar behemoths intent on radically shrinking the job market
here and elsewhere. McKinsey, the world's biggest corporate strategy
consultancy, calculated in 2019 that the emerging revolution of thinking
robotics would displace 37 million U.S. workers by 2030. Now, seeing the
current corporate stampede to impose RPAs on U.S. workplaces, McKinsey
analysts have upped their projection to 45 million job losses by 2030.
Returning to the hunting analogy, professional jobs requiring human-level
judgement have been presumed to be beyond the range of robotic firepower.
But, as one economist who studies labor now notes, with the mass deployment
of RPA technology, "that type of work is much more in the kill path."
The corporate vocabulary does not include the phrase "job cuts." Rather,
such unpleasantness is blandly referred to as "employment adjustment."
Moreover, terminations are hailed as universally beneficial-they're said to
"streamline" operations and "liberate" the workforce from tedious tasks.
Now, though, corporate wordsmiths are going to need a new thesaurus of
euphemisms to try glossing over the masses of job cuts coming for those in
the higher echelons of the corporate structure. Don't look now, but an
unanticipated result of the ongoing pandemic is that it has given cover for
CEOs to speed up the adoption of highly advanced RPAs to replace employees
once assumed to be immune from displacement. As one analyst told a New York
Times reporter, "With R.P.A., you can build a bot that costs $10,000 a year
and take out two to four humans."
Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, many top executives feared a public backlash
if they pushed automation too far too fast. But, ironically, the economic
collapse caused by the pandemic has so discombobulated the workplace and
diverted public attention that corporate bosses have been emboldened to rush
ahead, declaring, "I don't really care. I'm just going to do what's right
for my business." While the nationwide shutdown of offices and furloughing
of employees has caused misery for millions, one purveyor of RPA systems
approvingly notes that it has "'massively raised awareness' among executives
about the variety of work that no longer requires human involvement," The
New York Times says. He cheerfully declares, "We think any business process
can be automated," and his firm advises corporate bosses that half to
two-thirds of all the tasks being done at their companies can be done by
machines.
Conventional corporate wisdom blithely preaches that all new technologies
create more jobs than they kill, but even those Pollyannaish preachers are
now conceding that this robotic automation of white-collar jobs is being
imposed so suddenly, widely and stealthily that losses will crush any gains.
"We haven't hit the exponential point of this stuff yet," warns an alarmed
analyst. "And when we do, it's going to be dramatic."
Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and
author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With
The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow
Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998).
Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of
the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families,
environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
C 2021 Creators Syndicate