CAN YOU BE REPLACED BY A COMPUTER?

Not you or I, of course. We have highly skilled jobs. We make decisions that affect people’s lives. There is no way that a machine could do what we do. On the other hand, a lot of jobs once done by people are now done by computers. We have all seen images of automobile chassis moving down the production line as robotic arms weld at the exact spot that is needed. Sure, machines can do those mechanical jobs better than human beings. People with minimal education used to do those welding jobs and make pretty good money. Now they have to compete for minimum wage jobs.



ATMs
Of course there are those ATMs (automatic teller machines). You can find one in every bank. I don't know if any actual human tellers have been personally replaced aby ATMs, but banks need fewer humans when part of the work can be done by machines. If you have the right software on your cell phone, you can take a picture of the check that someone pays you, and the check will automatically be deposited in your account. You can tear the check up, and you don't even have to go to the bank.



Cashiers
You young people won't remember this, but once upon a time, when you went to the grocery store, the cashier actually had to punch the price of every item you bought. Now of course the cashier moves the upc (universal product code) across a scanner. That adds up the cost of your groceries and at the same time keeps a record of the store's inventory. It's not only more accurate, but it's also a lot faster, so the store doesn't have to hire so many cashiers.



Order Takers
Some years ago I worked for L L Bean one Christmas, taking orders over the phone. I'm sure L L Bean still takes phone orders, but they don't need as many people taking orders because customers can so easily place their order over the internet.



Taxi Drivers
Driverless cars have driven millions of miles, almost accident free. And don't worry about the dispatcher. With voice recognition software, automatic dispatchers will sometime be able to send a driverless taxi to you.



Journalists
Okay, these are not highly skilled jobs. What about careers that require judgment and ability to analyze, like journalism? Newspapers have already cut back as more and more people get their news on the internet rather than print newspapers. Not only that, but Thomason Financial news service is going to let computers actually write some stories. Computers can absorb the information in financial reports, compare a company's earnings to previous earnings reports, and write a report.



Stock Brokers
True, if you want to buy or sell stocks, you need to do so through a registered broker, but you don't have to talk to that broker personally. If you have confidence in your ability to choose your own stocks, you can get all the information you need from from the financial pages on Yahoo and AOL. You can buy and sell through online brokerages for as little as $10 a trade.



Translators
Machines are not yet as accurate as professional translators, but if you just want a quick fairly accurate translation, you can do it online in seconds.
(Machines ne sont pas encore aussi précis que des traducteurs professionnels , mais si vous voulez juste une traduction assez rapide et précise , vous pouvez le faire en ligne en quelques secondes.)
(The online translator took about a second to convert the paragraph above from English to French.)



Lawyers
Perry Mason is probably safe, but all those background legal searches for which lawyers bill us hundred of dollars an hour may not cost as much. Advances in artificial intelligence and e-discovery software make it possible to analyze documents in a fraction of the time for a lower cost. One organization, Blackstone Discovery, for example, was able to analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000.



Doctors
A few years ago IBM's supercomputer Watson beat the two champions at Jeopardy. Well, Watson is going to become Dr. Watson. The people at IBM are feeding the supercomputer all kinds of medical information. Medical computers might not have very much of a bedside manner, but they can store and recall a lot more information than any human can. They are also not likely to let prejudice influence their diagnoses. At the very least, computers are helping medical professionals find cures for many illnesses.



Surgeons
Obviously surgeons do their work hands on, but they are already enlisting robots to do some kinds of surgery. In these cases the robots do a better job than the hands-on surgeon. The incisions are smaller, there is less blood loss, and healing is quicker. In some cases surgeons have used robotic arms to operate remotely



Nurses
Most of the things that nurses do have to be done by human beings, but a number of nursing tasks could be done by a robot, for example, delivering meds. Having machines do these tasks could free up human nurses to tend to more pressing duties.



Professors.
Having been a professor for many decades, I know that there is no way that a computer could do my job. I am told, however, that Apple's iProf line of computers which can replace human professors in college classrooms. These computers will use advanced artificial intelligence algorithms and patented Internet searching techniques to create and deliver lectures for various subjects.