We must adopt automation

The highly developed countries of Europe, the USA, and Japan have replaced large numbers of workers with automatic machinery, especially in the automobile, food processing, textile and medicine sectors. There, a computerized machine can do the work of ten to fifteen workers with remarkable precision.  Instead of fifty persons only ten can manage a vehicle manufacturing assembly line. Automation gets the work done faster than what humans can do, so companies are happy to see their profit graph going upward. In the agriculture sector a single automated machine can harvest crops on a 100-acre land in matters of hours, which previously used to take about 50 laborers to complete.

The first industrial revolution brought in the age of mechanised production from iron, steel, coal and steam. The second was the result of internal combustion engine and electricity. The third was the digital revolution of information technology brought in by silicon, personal computers, cellphones and the internet. With the exponential ability to store data, the skillset required to analyse it has been left far behind.

The fourth industrial revolution has now begun. It is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs primarily in the following 10 areas, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, Internet of Things, 5G Broadband, 3D printing, Autonomous Vehicles, Cloud Computing, Blockchain like Distributed Ledgers Technology, Biotechnology and Precision Medicine, and Augmented Reality.

Klaus Schwab in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution states that previous industrial revolutions liberated man from animal power, made mass production possible and brought digital capabilities to billions of people, but the fourth is fundamentally different. It is characterised by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.

The idea of inanimate objects coming to life as intelligent beings has been around ages. The ancient Greeks had myths about robots, and Chinese and Egyptian engineers built automatons. However, the beginnings of modern AI can be traced to classical philosophers' attempts to describe human thinking as a symbolic system. But the field of AI wasn't formally founded until 1956, at a conference at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where the term "artificial intelligence" was coined. MIT cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and others who attended the conference were extremely optimistic about AI's future. "Within a generation [...] the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved," Minsky is quoted as saying in the book "AI: The Tumultuous Search for Artificial Intelligence."

Bangladesh needs to be well placed for this great revolution knocking on our doorsteps. Rather than be a consumer that makes us totally dependent, we must become a player and manufacturer of the new systems ensuring phenomenal economic dividends. However, in Bangladesh the debate is still on: Will our manufacturing sector go for automation? Will automation replace our huge workforce from the industries and factories, from the farmlands and orchards? What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of workers, especially in a populous country like ours? We have already seen the use of farm machinery in Bangladesh which is doing the work of 20 workers in only one hour. According to research from the McKinsey Global Institute, by 2030 about 75 million to 375 million workers around the world might need to switch sectors due to automation.

Social scientists are keenly observing the trends of automation in Bangladesh and trying to figure out the future scenario in the industrial sector.  

The readymade garment still remains the number one foreign currency earning sector in Bangladesh but it employs hundreds of workers to do simple jobs that are done by machines in the developed countries. With a thousand workers in a factory, majority of them being women, come numerous human and humanitarian factors that need to be attended to by the owners. Delay in payment of salary may lead to agitation and closure of the factory. In consideration of such unavoidable factors, owners are contemplating partial to full automation in order to lessen the dependence on humans.  They believe automation will ultimately boost the country’s apparel export in near future. But social scientists predict a shrinking of employment in the readymade garment sector because of the growing use of automation around the globe. However, the pertinent question is how long can the RMG sector maintain such a huge workforce?

Experts believe that the RMG sector will see a remarkable change in the next five to eight years when to stay in the competition, owners will have to adopt new strategies, skill development being one of them. In a paper prepared by Research and Policy Integration for Development (RAPID), it has been shown that while Bangladesh needs some 140 workers to make garments worth US$ 1 million, China and Vietnam need only 48 workers and India and Cambodia 75 workers. The figures here speak loudly in favour of automation with the strong argument that automation will increase RMG export by 30 to 40 billion in future. Eminent economists of the country also believe Bangladesh’s RMG sector will find it difficult to survive in the global competition without going for automation and modernization.

Since the argument in favour of automation is sounding louder and louder, it is likely to happen in the next eight to ten years, especially in bigger factories that supply high end products to the big retailers in the USA and EU. These buyers demand superior quality finishing with no blemishes, and only automation can ensure this.  

 There is no denying automation will cut costs, increase production and enhance profit, which is the goal of any entrepreneur, but, at the same time, the fact remains that a large number of workers may lose jobs and ultimately become a social burden. In the early days of automation, the focus was solely on IT. There are now software tools that span across all business processes and workflows. For instance, sales teams can automate the collection of data via a customer resource management platform like Salesforce or HubSPost. With the ability to compile data in real-time using the power of automation gives sales teams the ability to increase touch points and customer conversions. This type of workload automation essentially combines backend IT processes in an enterprise company with the frontend, user facing interface. And the ease of use is simplified, allowing any team to quickly learn and adopt for maximum results.

However contrary to popular belief many experts believe that artificial intelligence (AI) does not necessarily create unemployment. In fact, it boosts production and creates more job opportunities. In the US, automation in industries leads to the creation of around 156,000 jobs per annum.

In any case AI simply can’t replace all jobs. While computers rule the roost when it comes to carrying out repetitive tasks, humans excel when it comes to creative thinking. The inner workings of the brain are extremely complex in ways that machines just can’t replicate at least in the foreseeable future. Any jobs that involve creativity or creative problem-solving will not be replaced by artificial intelligence.

Many jobs require establishing trust and a human-to-human connection in order to get people to relax, open up and share about themselves. While AI can “technically” handle the role of a teacher, therapist or a nurse, there is no substitute for the critical human connection forged by the people in those roles. Computers, while capable of communicating, are missing that human touch.

It must be realised that technology, of which automation is a byproduct albeit a crucial one, is nothing without people with technological ideas. At the end of the day, it is the human factor that determines how a country ensures optimum use of any technology.

The writer is a journalist