🦾Robots vs. Humans: The Showdown Begins Now!
👉 The difference between automation and AI
Summary: This week, I focus on the difference between automation and AI and how both affect the job industry. I also explain the two things companies must do right now in order to prepare for the future.
Here’s a Sunday Morning Special, compliments of Milton, who I spent the week preparing for, hunkering down during, and then cleaning up after.
I recently received an email from a colleague who said I should not confuse automation with AI because they are totally different buckets. And in a way, he is right, so I thought I would clarify the differences and explain why I still focus on both interchangeably.
Automation Replaces the Human Body
Have you ever seen tomatoes being sorted by color? It is mesmerizing in the most satisfying way.
This is a great example of automation, where the robots are doing the work much faster than humans ever could. So, in this case, automation is replacing the physical body of the laborer.
Now, automation can be used for non-body things, like email and tasks with accounting, etc. But I find thinking of automation like the human body makes it easier to imagine.
I bring up automation in agriculture because it is an industry that has been devastated by robots. According to ChatGPT, there has been a wide downsizing of available agricultural jobs thanks to automation.
In the U.S., farm labor as a share of the total workforce has been declining for decades. In the early 1900s, around 40% of Americans worked in agriculture. Today, it's less than 2%.
Robotics and Precision Agriculture: Technologies like GPS-guided tractors, automated harvesters, and drones have drastically reduced the need for manual labor on large farms. For example, an automated lettuce harvester can replace up to 20 workers per day, according to some reports.
Labor-Intensive Crops: Even in crops where manual labor was once essential, like fruits and vegetables, automation is making significant inroads. Machines that can pick strawberries, apples, and other delicate crops are being developed, potentially displacing thousands of workers.
We Encourage This Automation
Zero laws have been passed in the US to save agricultural jobs from automation. In fact, quite the opposite has happened:
Subsidies and Farm Bills: Recent farm bills, such as the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, primarily focus on including funding for agricultural technology. They encourage technological innovation, which can lead to more automation.
Research and Development Grants: Funding and grants from entities like the USDA promote innovation in agricultural technology, including developing automation solutions. While this can improve productivity, it doesn’t directly address the displacement of workers.
So, while some industries fight against automation to prevent the replacement of humans, other sectors (and US policies) encourage it.
AI Replaces the Human Brain
While automation focuses on the tasks and jobs humans perform, AI focuses on mimicking human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.
Facebook as a Case Study of AI
Before AI was widely available, Meta (formerly acting as Facebook) used humans to moderate content - what we could post and what we couldn’t.
At its peak, Meta had 15,000 human workers worldwide who decided what was acceptable and what was not. The human toll, however, was these workers saw some of the ugliest behavior of the human race: attempts to post child pornography, beheadings, threats of rape and murder, etc.
Reviewing this graphic material often led to mental health challenges, and many moderators suffered PTSD-like symptoms.
Meta jumped at the chance to automate this moderation task, by setting up rules of what could and could not be posted. This not only saved Meta money (replacing humans with robots), but it also spared humans the trauma of reviewing such horrible posts.
RadioLab came out with a fascinating episode about the challenge Meta has with content moderation. Before the fake news and alternative facts, Facebook was already deciding how to deal with pornography (don’t show nipples, but wait, breastfeeding isn’t pornography!) and what an acceptable level of violence is.
Listen now—it’s an exceptional episode: “Post No evil”
One of the unexpected challenges highlighted in the above RadioLab episode, is that hard and fast rules must have exceptions. Is that nipple being posted related to a Renaissance masterpiece or of a woman breastfeeding? Or is it just smutty pornography?
AI Does the Deciding
This is where AI comes in. Like a human brain, AI uses a learning model to develop an understanding of the context of what is happening in the text, photo, or video.
As you can guess, one of the biggest challenges for AI is understanding context. For instance, the word “kill” can be used in a violent threat or as part of a phrase like “I’m going to kill this workout.” Meta’s AI uses tools like natural language processing (NLP) to analyze the words and the context in which they are used.
To help with this challenge, human moderators review and label content, which helps the AI learn what to look for. For example, the AI can learn to identify and filter out hate speech by being exposed to phrases, images, or symbols commonly associated with it.
Currently, Meta has not published the number of humans who have been replaced by robots, but you can imagine the number is significant.
Both Automation and AI are Taking Human Jobs
Going back to the email from my colleague, who told me not to confuse automation with AI. I agree that they have different functions in the working world — one automates the tasks we do, while the other helps us think about how we do things.
I asked ChatGPT to give me a quick chart of the differences:
Let’s focus on the last line of that chart, “Examples”: assembly-line robots, email scripts, chatbots, recommendation engines, and autonomous vehicles. It doesn’t matter which column they are in; they still replace humans performing those tasks.
Yes, we humans can undoubtedly work *alongside* the robots, writing our emails and blog posts faster. We can oversee the dock robots at the ports. And, yes, it is essential for the modern-day worker to understand how to use AI and for companies to integrate it to stay competitive.
But the key point is one robot can replace hundreds, if not thousands of human workers.
China has Embraced both Automation and AI
Several factors, ranging from a shrinking labor force and an aging population to gaining a competitive edge in the global economy, have forced China to embrace robots.
They even made it official in 2022 when the Chinese government released a five-year plan calling for China to become a global leader in industrial automation.
Read it now: China aims for global leadership in robotics with new five-year plan
According to one recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation: “China is already the largest industrial robot market in the world. In 2022, 52% of all industrial robots in the world were installed in China.”
While China claims to understand the need to retrain the human workers displaced, it doesn’t seem to have found a solution yet either.
Read more about it now: Industrial Robots in China Push People Out of Jobs, Slash Wages
While China does not have a welfare system, it does have its Dibao system, which provides minimum income support to low-income individuals and families. This system, which aims to ensure basic living needs are met, is similar to UBI (Universal Basic Income).
The State of the Robot Economy
Where does this leave us right now? It leaves us with two priorities that must be carefully thought through:
Short-term priority: companies and workers must learn to use the automated and AI tools available to stay competitive.
Long-term priority: companies must decide whether human jobs or the bottom line is more important.
As a reminder, I already have seen people losing their jobs as companies rush to stay competitive. Entire copywriting teams have been laid off in favor of a single person putting prompts into ChatGPT. I myself lost my largest agency client as they switched to using AI tools for marketing strategy and content.
Time will tell if this trend continues, but something tells me it will. Then the big question is what’s next?
I have prepared a corporate guide containing nine essential steps for companies to follow for what’s next and to help them decide between an AI and a human workforce.
Read it now: 🧰 Humans vs AI: The Ultimate Corporate Guide
Families will Make the Choice, Too:
Elon Musk just released his version of a Jetson’s future where Rosey the Robot Maid will be a reality:
Let me know - will you spend $20k on this? (Yes, yes, we most likely will… or it will come with the house you buy in the future.)
This week’s disclosure: as already noted in my newsletter above, I used ChatGPT to help me research examples of automation and AI as well as statistics about its use.
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As I explained in my first newsletter, after losing my biggest client to AI, I am now “leaning into me” and using this time to share my business experience and explore what’s next for humans in a world where robots can do all of our jobs quicker, cheaper, and most likely better.
Thank you to the many people who emailed, texted, or texted with their encouragement and thoughts about AI. I’m excited to continue sharing my experiences via Substack.
This newsletter is packed with valuable tips on marketing, content creation, trends, and tech tools. It will help you make sense of today’s business world so you can focus on being the most efficient you!