Technological innovation has begun to change our lives rapidly. It seems that the rapid growth in robotic technology will be felt in our social life in the near future. While robots are currently being used extensively in the industrial field, the service sector has also started to be supported by robots. Robots are used in many areas from schools to hospitals. Especially in the health sector, he has started to assist doctors, nurses and technicians at many points from the diagnosis of diseases to the analysis of patient data.
The development of AI-driven business processes is also starting to have an impact on revenue and growth, and this growth is expected to continue in the coming years. Parallel to this, it seems that the development of new professions will bring different expansions to the sector.
As this wave of technological change changes job profiles, this will require some workers to be proficient or retrained within the current industry or to transition to another sector. Technology-based learning programs are necessary to ensure that current employees become skilled individuals in the face of technological development. The important question here is who will finance these programs. Governments will play an important role in encouraging investment and providing direct financing to educational institutions.
Robots and the Danger of a Jobless Future
Looking at the historical process, the mechanization of agriculture has displaced millions of people, forcing the unemployed laborers to migrate to the city in search of work in the factories. Automation and globalization then shifted workers from the manufacturing sector to the service sector. Although short-term unemployment rose during these transition periods, these periods were never permanent. New business areas were born. New doors opened for those who lost their old jobs. Moreover, these new jobs were generally more desirable than the old ones. It required higher skill but brought better money. As the machines used in production improved, the productivity of the workers using these machines also increased. Thus, workers became more valuable and could demand higher wages. In this postwar period, the rise in productivity was reflected in the average worker's wage; advancing technology put money in the pocket of the worker. These workers also consumed more with their increased income.
Productivity growth went into the pockets of the worker in the 1950s, but now it goes almost entirely into the pockets of employers and investors. The share of national income that goes to labor has fallen rapidly compared to the share that goes to capital and it continues in free fall. In the face of this situation, one of our most basic assumptions about technology, "The machine is a tool that increases the productivity of the worker." We will also have to question his assumption. Because today, machines themselves become workers.
OECD's 2016 indicators show that especially underdeveloped and developing countries will face greater destruction in the face of automation. As a result of automation, the entire economy can become less labor-intensive and more capital-intensive. For example, although fledgling companies such as Google and Facebook have huge market capitalizations, the number of people they employ remains small relative to their size and influence.
Result
Robots and artificial intelligence have now become an indispensable part of our lives. The fact that these technologies change business processes and transform professions has started to create great changes and destruction in employment. Governments need to adapt their legal regulations to these developments so that human workers who lose their jobs to robots can be included in the process. In addition, the adaptation of companies to automation causes reductions in tax revenues of governments. In this respect, it will be necessary to make adjustments in tax laws primarily in order to ensure that people are trained and gain new skills in the face of this technology and to balance the tax revenues of governments.
