Will robots actually make our lives better or worse? In the 21st century of today’s modern life, robots seen as man’s greatest invention, they have entered into every corner of human life. For decades, many people have been predicting how the rise of robotic technologies and advanced artificial intelligence will have a direct effect on our lives. There is no denying that robots can bring about tons of benefits to us such as being efficient and more productive, able to work in harsh environments and help the police by using predictive policing. However, this article will also elaborate on how robots will have a negative impact on our lives by increasing unemployment rate on jobs, diminishing our abilities to multitask and robots can be extremely dangerous.
Robots improve productivity when they are applied to tasks that they perform more efficiently and to a higher and more consistent level of quality than humans. In a study focused specifically on robotics for the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels (2015) concluded that robot densification increased annual growth of GDP and labor productivity between 1993 and 2007 by about 0.37 and 0.36 percentage points respectively across 17 countries studied, representing 10% of total GDP growth in the countries studied over the time period and comparing with the 0.35 percentage point estimated total contribution of steam technology to British annual labor productivity growth between 1850 and 1910. A more recent study carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (2017) found that investment in robots contributed 10% of growth in GDP per capita in OECD countries from 1993 to 2016 and the same study found that a one-unit increase in robotics density is associated with a 0.04% increase in labour productivity. Looking ahead, the McKinsey Global Institute (2017) predicts that up to half of the total productivity growth needed to ensure a 2.8% growth in GDP over the next 50 years will be driven by automation.
