CEO Disagrees With Trump Official’s Automation Prediction: It’s Gonna Happen – Futurism

In Brief Advancements in the field of robotics and AI are prompting the head of Yum Brands to weigh in on the reality of job displacement. According to him, it's going to happen sooner than some may think. Fast Food Automation

How will technological innovation shape the future of the workforce? According to Greg Creed, the CEO of Yum Brands, the parentcompany of popular fast food chains like Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell, automation could replace humans in the food industry by the mid-2020s.

Creed shared this prediction in an interview with CNBC:

I believe, having listened to people in the artificial intelligence area and were starting to work with them in that area I think [50 to 100 years] is way too long. I think its going to happen I dont think it is going to happen next year or the year after, but I do believe that probably by the mid 20s to the late 20s, youll start to see a dramatic change in sort of how machines sort of run the world.

But thats not to say that humans will be completely obsolete. We dont make a lot of things until customers order, explained Creed. Im not sure were going to have robots replace people. That said, he notes that the rise in automation today marks the beginning of robotics [] but I dont see it wholesaling the wholesale sense changing peoples jobs in the short-term.

In contrast, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says that automationisnt an imminent threat to American jobs. He notes that hes not worried at all about machines displacing human workers and that artificial intelligence (AI) taking over jobs wont happen for another 50 to 100 years.

Right now, several blue-collar industries are already feeling the effects of automation. For instance, theRio Tinto mining company has already deployed a fleet of 73 self-driving trucks that haul payloads at a cost 15 percent less than those operated by human drivers. In developing nations in Southeast Asia, where 137 million people depend on manufacturing jobs as their main source of income, a study notes that many workersare in danger of being replaced by automated systems in the next 20 years.

While its impact on white-collar jobsisnt currently quite as pronounced, experts believe that automation will have significant implications within several of those industriesas well. A report from Deloitte Insight states that an estimated 114,000 jobs in the legal sector have a high chance of being replaced with automated machines and algorithms within the next two decades.

These predictions are premised on the fact that machines are now more than capable of completing the repetitive jobs that manyhuman workers are handling today. Given the advancements in the field and the focus people are putting on further developing the technology, its only a matter of time before we truly begin to feel the real effects of automation across multiple industries.

I think its gonna happen, Creed said. Well see a dramatic change in how machines run things.

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CEO Disagrees With Trump Official's Automation Prediction: It's Gonna Happen - Futurism