The discussion around Artificial Intelligence (AI) with regards to how the unchecked development of the technology could lead to something like the rise of the machines appears to have died right down, which is something that happens quite a lot as far as discussions around the latest and greatest tech go. The fact that it has died down must say a lot about its real-world implications in that there was indeed quite a lot of sensationalism.

The news business has evolved too, right, and quite annoyingly so too. In about 10 years time the typical news piece will probably be full-on click-bait, with that news not following a click-bait like format probably not going to get any attention at all.

That for me is what we should all be scared of, not what is essentially the imagined possibility that computers are going to develop consciousness and then turn on us, keeping many of us as pets and some other nonsense like that.

To put it in a way which is perhaps a lot closer to the theme of this particular blog, no, the robots are not coming for your job. AI as the technology driving robots or bots (digital robots) may be targeting automation and the simulation of the ability to learn, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to start developing consciousness and then turn on us. Robots aren’t going to want to do our jobs in any case because for the last few hundred years we’ve pretty much all been doing useless jobs!

Think about it – most of us work in some or other position which is in support of the financial sector, or our jobs have something to do with the organisation of the world’s information for the purposes of streamlining business operations.

Sure, your job is important to you and it’s important to your employers, but only because that’s what puts food on the table in the figurative sense. In the literal sense farmers, builders and the people who purify our drinking water have the most important jobs, with some sections of the medical industry perhaps also laying legitimate claim to having important jobs. I mean otherwise we all know about how the best medical care is reserved only for those who can afford it, right?

So the argument with AI is that robots dealing in automation would harbour some intelligence which resembles consciousness, but as mentioned, their implied intelligence would focus on the kind of efficiency which is already being put in use as we speak, such as how you can use an online Check Stub Maker instead of having to hire an entire HR team as you would have needed to do one or two decades ago.

This kind of puts things into perspective about just how important our jobs are, doesn’t it? If you’re still worried though then perhaps it’s time for you to get into learning how to code. Learn Computer Science with any language you feel you might want to use to build something. You might even go on to create a business of your own for which you would need to generate pay stubs as a sign of its growing success.