Robots Will Take Your Job... But You'll Keep the Paycheck

Lately, we’ve been hearing quite a lot about the potential dangers of automation and AI…

Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking have all recently spoken out, advising the public on the potentially catastrophic nature of artificial intelligence and robotics.

Further, the Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Wired, and just about every other reputable media service covering technology have all warned that robots will soon take our jobs.

The projections vary across the board, but even the most conservative estimates are giving us humans no more than a few decades before our productive efforts are eclipsed by intelligent machines.

Gartner says smart robots will take over a third of jobs within just 10 years…

An Oxford study tells us 45% of jobs will be vulnerable to automation within two decades…

And computer Science Professor Moshe Vardi of Rice University suggests that by 2045, machines will be able to do virtually anything a human can do, and better, too.

These “robots will take our jobs” concerns are so widespread that entire organizations are popping up in an effort to prevent the coming “robopocalypse.”

One of these organizations, known as the Future of Life Institute, just won a $10 million donation from Elon Musk to fund its global research program.

Depending on if you’re a glass-half-full or half-empty kind of person, the Institute’s tagline either reads quite hopeful or incredibly ominous:

“Technology has given life the opportunity to flourish like never before… or to self-destruct.”

This seems to be the general premise behind most of the robot chatter out there. There is no middle ground: It’s either going to be a total utopia or a full-blown Armageddon.

A Not-So-Scary Future

Of course, the reality is we’re probably going to end up somewhere in between the aforementioned extremes. That is, we’ll continue to see economic and social benefits from automated technology going forward, but we’ll also have to face a new set of challenges.

Frankly, I don’t expect to see any robot overlords in my lifetime, but I do worry about the threat of automation and the effect this could have on my job.

Already, robots are taking over as investment advisors, making real-life trades, and they’re even writing news stories.

Granted, identifying trends and picking relevant stocks is a bit more complicated than what these programs can currently accomplish, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if robots begin outperforming most human investors within a few decades.

The upside to this, though, is that even if I end up out of a job, I feel pretty confident I’ll be able to use robots to my financial benefit.

For one, I’m investing heavily in the companies that make robots and their components… and urging all of our readers to as well.

The way I see it, betting on robots is a natural hedge against widespread automation. After all, if robots do end up disrupting the entire economy, that’s exactly where the money will be.

The other point of reassurance is something I haven’t heard anyone talk about just yet, and that’s the fact that in the future, robots will work for you.

Becoming Your Own Robot Overlord

I’m not going to go into all the possibilities here, because they’re virtually limitless, but I will provide a scenario I’m quite confident will happen in the near future.

Consider popular ride-sharing app Uber and the business model behind it…

Uber outsources its entire workforce to independent contractors, or “partners,” as Uber calls them. These partners take home about 80% of the company’s revenue, amounting to somewhere around $8 billion in wages a year.

Now consider the widespread push for driverless vehicles…

Tesla, Google, Mercedes, Toyota, Audi, Nissan, and Volvo are all working on their own prototypes. Soon enough, you’ll even be able to purchase one of your own.

Nissan, for instance, has already announced plans to launch a driverless version of its top-selling electric vehicle, the Leaf, by as soon as 2020. Likewise, Ford CEO Mark Fields expects his company’s fully autonomous cars to hit the market the same year.

And if Audi moves forward as planned, its A8 will be capable for fully autonomous driving by 2017 — just two years from now.

Google will be right on its tail, too, with Sergey Brin having already made it clear the company will bring its driverless cars to market by no later than 2018.

Barring any regulatory setbacks, it seems our vehicles will soon be driven by our own personal robot chauffeurs… And while this will certainly be a convenience if you need to go somewhere, the true benefit of robot drivers extends far beyond laziness and leisure.

The reality is that in combination with service-sharing applications like Uber, driverless cars and robotics are bound to become massive income generators…

If you live in a city and pay for a parking spot, for instance, you can go right ahead and cancel it. Instead of paying to have your driverless car sit idle all day, why not lease it out to Uber and earn yourself some cab fare in the meantime?

How much cab fare exactly? Well, a whole lot…

According to Glassdoor.com, the hourly pay for an average Uber driver is $13. Assuming a 40-hour workweek, that comes out to $27,040 a year.

But robot drivers won’t be working eight-hour days, five days a week. They’ll work every day from 5:00 a.m. — when the Type As wake up — until 2:00 a.m. — when the bar crowd goes to sleep.

Considering the fact that your robot driver will never get tired and won’t demand overtime, it could potentially put around $80,000 in your pocket every year (using current figures) if you leased it out to Uber.

Granted, your car would be taking on some serious mileage, but the depreciation would be nothing compared to what you’d be bringing in on the side.

Now, whether or not Uber will ever offer such an option is obviously not yet known, but the takeaway here is the general idea of purchasing and leasing automation.

So yes, it’s true robots are likely to take over the workforce at an ever-expanding rate, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be taking your paycheck. In fact, the most likely scenario is that robots will do your job for you, and you will be the one taking their paychecks.

Until next time,

Jason Stutman

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