Column: Automation is dangerous and sad for American workers, consumers – Chicago Tribune

It's a misanthrope's dream.

You can go through an entire day working, commuting, shopping, dining, recreating without encountering another human being.

OK, you can't do that now. But, it's coming.

Thanks to automation.

I was reading that cashiers in stores and restaurants and retail workers are the next group with a bull's eye and sign painted on their backs: Replace with robot.

A report by the McKinsey Global Institute states that half the tasks done by cashiers and salespeople can be automated using technology available today. And two-thirds of tasks done by grocery store workers can be automated.

Proponents of automation say it will replace only routine jobs, routine tasks.

Routine? What's routine? A 90 mph fastball is routine to Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta, but not to the rest of us.

It takes skill and ability to do the routine. Does anyone claim robots do these routine jobs better than people? No, what's behind automation is money. Robots are cheaper and less trouble than human beings.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8 million people (six percent of American workers) are cashiers or in retail sales. What will happen to them?

Again, automation enthusiasts say these workers will be freed to do other tasks. Or, they will be trained to do jobs that aren't replaceable (yet) by robots.

Do you honesty believe honestly that this will happen? Isn't it much more likely businesses will fire the former routine task workers, that millions of people without the skills and perhaps the aptitude to learn these new jobs will be out on the street? Will there even be enough of these brave-new-world jobs to go around?

And who is thinking about us the customers, the consumers? When I shop or dine I like to deal with people.

I like chatting with the cashier at the grocery store.

I like to explain my needs to a sales clerk.

And most of all, I like to be a regular at a restaurant where the servers know me and make me feel welcome. Yet, horribly, waitresses and waiters are on the automated hit list.

We are creating a society of isolated individuals, of people who don't have don't want to have interaction with other humans.

And that is unhealthy, dangerous and very sad.

But I don't see any way to stop it.

Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist.

Original post:

Column: Automation is dangerous and sad for American workers, consumers - Chicago Tribune