Over the past couple of years, there’s been so much talk about AI, and how it’s bad for us – job-wise – usually followed by a claim that it will only help us do our job better. The role of humans would then be to do the human part of the job – ergo the communication with clients and all that stuff you probably hate.

Before I go any further, I’d like to make a short disclaimer: this article will possibly be biased and is written with Eastern-European culture in mind. What I write may possibly not hold true in other parts of the world, so keep that in mind before jumping to the comment section.
Okay, with that being said we may return back to the topic.
The main issue I have with the world education-wise is the saying that one must pursue higher education in order to have a better-paid job and overall better life security.
While that’s true in some cases, it cannot be further away from the truth in others. Today, at least in my country, people with master’s degrees are doing jobs that required only a high school diploma 20 years ago. Just take a moment and think about how insane that is – nowadays you’ll need to be in school for 5 years longer just to work at the same place your parents did!
I intend to back this up with a little story in the next section.
Let me tell you a story
A week or so ago I was at the bank, opening up a business account. Nothing fancy there, basically you sit with the worker and sign like 10 documents. Then, after a couple of days when the account was ready I went back in and once again only signed documents, but this time the pile of documents was never-ending.
What’s the point of this story, you may ask. Well, the whole point is that this person working in the bank needs to have a master’s degree (or bachelors in some rare cases) just to hand out and prepare documents to sign.
Of course, I don’t think that all people working in banks do is preparing and handing out documents to parties, waiting for them to be signed. But for a part of them, that pretty much describes their jobs.
This claim doesn’t only apply to the banking sector, but also to the majority of the public administration. Just think about the last time you were standing in line, just to hear the same sentence person before you heard (and person after you will hear), only because you need to file one paper which for some unexplained reason cannot be filed online.
And that’s not OK.
Conclusion – the education level doesn’t guarantee job security (automatization-wise).
Where it all went wrong
I’m not saying that a job in a bank or public administration (or any which strictly implies following a procedure) is bad, but why the hell would you need 5 years of college to apply for a Junior procedure follower?
You will learn everything needed in the first couple of months at the job. Period.
And now we’re talking about AI taking over jobs like those ones. People are scared. But why in the world would you need AI to write loops and conditionals?
People are at the fear that AI will take over their jobs when the reality is that their jobs could be automated the moment computer programming was invented, and programmers learned how to write if’s and for’s.
It’s as simple as that – if there is a procedure to follow, then you don’t need AI, because you don’t really need somebody to think, just to perform. Anything that can be described can be automated. If your job is to follow a procedure, then the requirement for AI is non-existent, because it can be linearly programmed.
The question remains – why haven’t procedure-following jobs been automated?
The main problem(s) with job automation
Some of the jobs have already been automated, and that’s a good thing. The reasons why I think so are various, but it boils down to:
- Some jobs aren’t intended to be done by humans (due to how physically difficult they are)
- Others make you bored to death (and who wants to spend 1/3 of his day being bored)
But this section will deal with the main problems of job Automation, at least from my standpoint. Those are:
- No one to blame – you know that one test you’ve forgotten to write and it bites you in the ass in production? The same applies here. If a job is automated then there no person at which the boss can yell if all goes south.
- Lack of human touch – we are social beings, and as such enjoy socializing and making new contacts. Machines are just machines, and as such provide no way for proper human communication.
Now before making conclusions let’s take a minute to discuss the pros and cons of job automatization.
The pros and cons of job automation
When we talk about pros, I think two parties can benefit:
- Employers – something that’s automated cannot do stuff wrong (if automated correctly), doesn’t require a salary each month, and also can’t have a bad day
- You – that’s right. Remember the waiting in line example from above? Or the bank one? That can easily be automated and done online, saving you both time and nerves.
But when it comes to cons I’ll dive into only one – but the one holding the automatization back – the ethics issue.
Is it wrong to take away jobs people worked hard to get in the first place? What about thousands of families that would be put at risk?
It’s not so easy to make a decision, right?
Take home note
This wasn’t an easy subject to talk about – there are just so many different viewpoints and opinions. As said earlier, the whole article is based on the situation of where I live, and I hope things are better (more 21st century like) where you live.
With everything said, what can I conclude?
To start out, I don’t get the point of trash talking about AI and how it will replace you if your job could literally be replaced by a simple Python script. There’s no need to worry, as for now, the ethics issues seem to outweigh the benefits. If your job can’t be replaced by simple linear Programming, then I think AI will one day help you make better decisions, and essentially make you better at your job, at least for now.
From my standpoint, as someone fairly confident in my technical skills, but also a business owner, I would never even consider hiring someone if the job can be automated in any way, shape or form – being with simple if’s and for’s or by implementing more sophisticated machine/deep learning algorithms.
But that’s only my opinion, and you’re entitled to have yours, so please share it with me down in the comment section. Thanks for reading.
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