The Impact of Technology on our Future Lives

The Impact of Technology on our Future Lives

Introduction

Technology continues to shape our lives in different ways. Before the onset of technology, there were many tasks that used to consume a lot of time and manpower. This affected production rate and in turn profit turnover. Technology simplified many tasks with the automation of many things such as complex as food processing in factories to simple tasks such as dish washing machines in our homes. In as much as technology simplifies lives, we cannot overlook its negative side. Internet connection has made the world a global village where good ideas as well as bad ones are exchanged by people all over the world. The internet is among the few things humans have built that that they don’t truly understand (Erick and Jared 141).

This essay will highlight how driverless cars and robotics will impact the future. Also, it will discuss the positive and negative implications of the mentioned technology.

Driverless cars

There is a unanimous agreement that driverless cars will replace human motorists in the near future. This is because it will reduce the number of fatal crashes. In US alone, traffic accidents claim more than 30,000 lives a year and experts say that by the middle of this century, that toll could fall by up to 90% (Kate 1). This shows that driverless cars are more careful on the roads compared to human drivers meaning that people will prefer the automated cars to human drivers. This will result to loss of employment for many people. There are many people who have been employed as cab drivers, bus drivers and truck drivers. When driverless cars take toll, all the people employed in the transport industry will lose their jobs. In a world seeking to end unemployment, the technology of driverless cars will add to the unemployment burden.

Because of reduced road accidents, there will be a drop in donor organs supply. According to Kate, about 13% of the organs made available for donation came from victims of fatal car crashes (2). This is a case of dilemma because both matters are important. We want to reduce the number of fatal car crashes and at the same time save the people who need organ donation. Scientists are however working on a way to close the gap by harvesting donor organs from pigs, growing the organs in the lab and transporting the organs over long distance (Kate 2).

It important to note that there will be reduced traffic because of driverless cars. This is because the cars have been programmed to observe traffic rules and observe traffic lights. Also because there will be less cars on the roads because people will most likely subscribe to the services of driverless cars rather than owning their own cars. This is a positive impact because less traffic saves on time as people attend to their tasks on time.

Robotics

Robots are gradually taking over many tasks in the world. Computers have substituted a number of jobs over the recent years. Such jobs include the functions of cashiers, bookkeepers and telephone operators. There are simple machines that have simplified tasks but they still require manpower to operate them. A good example is a vacuum cleaner where the machine has made cleaning easier but one must operate it physically. The computerization of jobs will continue to increase as new technology continues to be invented. There will be machines that do not require manpower to operate because they have been programmed to perform all tasks independently. The advantages using of robots in production is that they can perform hazardous that human beings cannot. They do not get tired and so they can work for hours on end without taking a break. Also, robots do not require monthly salaries contrary to a human workforce. Seeing this, many employers will prefer robots to humans.

This preference will render many people jobless. For instance, in a manufacturing plant that requires an average of 50 employees, the owner would prefer 10 robots which would effectively perform the tasks of 50 employees in a shorter time and therefore increasing production. According to Carl et al., the impact of computerization of labour is a decline in employment in routine intensive occupations (2). This implies that occupations mainly consisting of tasks following well-defined procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated algorithms rather than a human workforce.

Conclusion

In summation, technology will continue to evolve and new and more sophisticated inventions will continue come up. Although the new technology will result in simplification of tasks hence saving time and increase production, there will be a high rate of unemployment. This is because automated machines will take over tasks that were previously carried out by humans. The same technology invented by people will leave many people jobless.