George Blair's Mind's Eye

The Robots are coming!

Robots and computer sytems are taking over. They came into our car plants a couple of decades ago. Now they are progressing further: “using robots to replace human workers would be the next big thing in the technology industry. Not just Google, other major technology companies such as Microsoft and Amazon also have been developing robotics technology to capture the future growth opportunities.” (Wanli Wang, an analyst at CIMB Securities).

Computer intelligence is increasingly important in healthcare and finance. The traders are being replaced by automated computer systems that can respond to market changes in milliseconds.

At a mundane level, supermarkets have self-service checkouts, public transport needs very few people to handle cash, which has been replaced by electronic money.

The question is not whether this is good or bad, but what will happen to the unemployed and the growing number of people on zero hour contracts in poorly paid service sector jobs? We have already seen a growing disparity of incomes.

These images are an attempt to start the debate.