Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Workforce Displacement

Paper Overview

The paper states over half of the jobs in the U.S are at risk for some level of displacement. Some jobs will have part of their work replaced while other positions will be eliminated, moving the value of automation to 9 trillion U.S dollars by 2030. (HUMAN-CENTERED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND WORKFORCE DISPLACEMENT) AI will take over the repetitive tasks but still need workers to communicate the daily necessities, and additional sophisticated workers are required to automate these assignments.

The Industry

Many Industries are ripe for change; shoppers may have noticed the changes in the retail industry. There has been an increase in self-checkout at retail stores across the country. According to Grandview research, self-checkout in the U.S was available 40% of the time across all retail. (Grand View Research) As base pay for retail workers increases, so does the level of automation. What does this mean for a company's unskilled workers? The company may give the displaced employees supplemental training for a new position allowing the company to focus on less repetitive tasks and increase employees' happiness. However, the result depends on the company's target customer. For example, Publix having self-checkout allows employees to offer improved customer service at their store. In contrast, Walmart implementing self-checkout enable the corporation to reduce operational costs that are then passed on as cost savings to the customer.

The Future

How will automation affect the future of retail? Hiring additional people during the holidays in the retail sector is standard practice. In the future, a company could allocate additional funds for their cloud-based check-out service instead of hiring seasonal employees to handle the increase in service levels. Walmart could automate self-pick-up for non-produce items. Having a robot collect products requested for each self-pickup order would allow the company to alter inventory counts instantly. The robot would know the aisle and aisle row for each product. At a Walmart in Boca Raton, Florida, they tested robots for counting shelf inventory and floor cleaning. These practices are niche now but will be more common in the future.

Works Cited

Grand View Research. “Self-checkout Systems Market Size Report, 2022-2030.” Grand View Research, 2020, https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/self-checkout-systems-market. Accessed 10 October 2022.

HUMAN-CENTERED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND WORKFORCE DISPLACEMENT. “Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Workforce Displacement.” Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Workforce Displacement, vol. 1, no. 1, 2016, p. 4.