Technological progress was and remained one of the moving forces of economic development throughout history. Robotization and automation are some of the most notable contemporary developments in this respect. The sheer magnitude of technological advances in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and the prospects of workplace automation may raise concerns about the employment perspectives for humans.
At the same time, there are also grounds for optimism allowing the proponents of robotization to argue that its benefits will most certainly outweigh its potential downsides. A utilitarian approach to the problem requires analyzing whether robotization will promote the greatest happiness for the largest number of people as opposed to other options. From this perspective, robotization is an ethically laudable development because, instead of mechanical jobs taken by robots, it will promote more meaningful and fulfilling jobs for humans.
The main argument why the effect of robotization on employment deserves a positive ethical evaluation is that it will make jobs more meaningful and rewarding. Utilitarianism’s central premise is that ethically right decisions promote “the greatest possible quantity of happiness” for the greatest number of persons (Bentham 232). One of the main aspects in which employment may promote happiness is by offering emotionally fulfilling, meaningful work. The five critical factors of meaningful work, as identified by Smits et al., are the sense of purpose, social relationships, improvement and professional growth, recognition, and autonomy (507).
If robots take over tedious and mindless tasks, they will allow human workers to focus on more purposeful and rewarding activities (Smids et al. 516). Moreover, the time that would otherwise be spent on these tasks may be used for enhanced interpersonal contact with coworkers, also making the jobs more fulfilling. Thus, a good ethical option maximizes happiness, and allowing the robots to take over tedious and uncreative tasks will make work more meaningful and, hence, increase the workers’ happiness. Therefore, one may claim that robotization’s effect on employment is ethically positive.
The obvious objection to this argument is that, although providing some people with more meaningful and rewarding work, robotization will also deprive others of their jobs. There are several groups that are at particular risk due to technological advances. These are production workers, from agricultural technicians to bicycle repairers, low-qualification service sector workers, including cashiers, gaming dealers, couriers, and the “bulk of office and administrative support workers” (Frey and Osborne 268).
All these groups perform tasks that do not require much creative thinking and are subject to easy algorithmization, which makes them the obvious candidates for automatic replacement. Losing one’s job and associated income is undoubtedly a negative development for a person. Moreover, utilitarianism posits that one ethical decision-making should always consider the intensity of happiness or unhappiness caused by a given action (Bentham 31). It seems reasonable to assume that the unhappiness from losing one’s job is greater than the happiness from one’s job becoming more meaningful. Thus, if developments that promote unhappiness are ethically bad, and the unhappiness from job positions destroyed overweighs the happiness from job positions becoming more rewarding, robotization is unethical.
However, this objection does not consider the fact that, while destroying some jobs, technological revolutions will also inevitably produce others – and robotization is a technological revolution. The concerns about machines overtaking people’s jobs and leaving humans unemployed are hardly an exclusive prerogative of the age of robotization. On the contrary, they existed at least since the Industrial Revolution, with Luddites being one commonly known example of such fears going back as far as the 19th century. However, these fears proved unfounded because the Industrial Revolution created much more jobs than destroyed them.
With this in mind, there are considerable grounds to assume robotization will do the same. On the one hand, technological advances are historically giving rise to new industries, which, in turn, provide new employment opportunities (Volti 128). Moreover, by lowering production costs, robotization promotes consumption, which stimulates the development of the economy as a whole and creates “new employment opportunities indirectly” (Volti 128). Considering this, robotization will most likely increase rather than decrease the number of job positions available on the market, which means that the balance of labor supply and demand will not suffer much.
Apart from that, it is also necessary to remember that the new jobs created by robotization will also likely be more fulfilling than the ones the robots take over. As mentioned above, the job positions that are most likely to be filled by robots are those that provide relatively little opportunity for professional development, social relationships, recognition, and autonomy (Frey and Osborne 268).
Thus, by exclusion, one may assume that the new jobs that prove too challenging for robots to fill in the foreseeable future will be those centered on creative solutions and social interactions. Smids et al. point out that these jobs tend to be more fulfilling and emotionally rewarding – in other words, more conducive to happiness (507). With this in mind, the ethical argument in favor of robotization becomes even stronger. Meaningful jobs tend to maximize people’s happiness, and the jobs created by robotization will most likely be more meaningful than the simple mechanical operations overtaken by machines. Therefore, on the balance of averages, the new jobs produced by robotization will likely be more rewarding than the old jobs taken over by robots.
As one can see, a utilitarian approach toward robotization demonstrates its ethical benefits because, in all likelihood, automation will maximize happiness for the greatest number of people. Robotization will make many existing jobs more meaningful and rewarding. A valid objection is that it will eliminate many other jobs, especially those that require low qualifications and are highly repetitive. However, historical evidence suggests that major technological advances in production offer more new jobs than they eliminate. Moreover, the new non-robotized jobs that automation creates will probably be more creative, social-oriented, and, hence, more meaningful and rewarding than the old ones taken over by robots.
Works Cited
Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Batoche Books, 2000.
Frey, Carl B., and Michael A. Osborne. “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization?” Technological Forecasting & Social Change, vol. 114 (2017), pp. 254-280.
Smids, Jilles, et al. “Robots in the Workplace: a Threat to – or Opportunity for – Meaningful Work?” Philosophy & Technology, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 503-522.
Volti, Rudi. An Introduction to the Sociology of Work and Occupations. Pine Forge Press, 2011.