This is one of the posts that I wanted to make while I was on my blogging hiatus; the impetus to write it came about as I was thinking how a change in the way an existing piece of software was designed could give my parents more free time.
Of course, as a programmer I am often tasked with developing software which automates some kind of process. Increasingly the processes that are being automated are completely new and could never be done by a human – this is technology creating new opportunities.
But this isn’t necessarily the case all the time. Sometimes we automate a process which was performed manually and we are just finding a more efficient way of doing it. Efficiency in this case is defined as a ratio of the capital invested and the revenue received.
Computers make it possible to perform some processes incredibly quickly so if your level of revenue received is increased the faster the process is performed then computers are definately the tool for you. More often than not however, when asked to automate an existing manual process we are usually looking at taking some segment of the workforce and making then redundant as a way of reducing the cost of providing the service.
I am no bleeding heart but the question does need to be asked – what are the implications of using technology to automate a process that will cause redundancy in the workforce? The rhetoric is that an organisation can take these staff and redeploy them productively.
The counter to the redeployment argument is that certain parts of the workforce can not, or will not support reskilling. If I am an employee who has been made redundant and my employer has given me the opportunity to be productive elsewhere in the organisation – who’s fault is it if I fail?
To me its a question that speakes to ones personal political leanings, but I doubt that many developers have turned down an automation job because it will put people out of work (we have to make a crust too).
Ultimately I think we are approaching a day when our day to day tasks are completely automated and we are left with time to use our human potential to tackle greater challenges. That old Caddyshackism – “someone has to dig ditches and flip burgers” may not always be true.