The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Changing Jobs, and Hand-Cut Noodles
Lately, the tollgates on regional private expressways are being replaced by automated hi-pass lanes.
Even without mentioning the 4th Industrial Revolution, the times are clearly changing.
Most people don't really point fingers at the fact that the humans at the tollgates are being replaced by machines.
The reason is that it's faster and more convenient.
Ironically, issues related to the 4th Industrial Revolution and disappearing jobs
are also being overlooked for the same reason: it's faster and more convenient.
So which jobs will disappear? Strangely, if you look at the reports from major media outlets and research institutes, the answers are all over the map. The design side of the arts will shrink. http://nara.ecatalog.kr/src/viewer/main.php?host=main&site=20160226_162319_14&category=1&page=2 https://taling.me/Blog/content02.php?Id=559 That's what one source claims, while another source says the opposite. http://yd-donga.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=work_news&wr_id=8903 |
But according to my own hunch ;D none of that really matters.
I feel like the criterion for which jobs disappear isn't the category of the work itself.
They say bus drivers will disappear when the self-driving era arrives. Sejong City and many other local governments and countries have already started pilot programs.
But have you ever seen an article like this? Will this kind of job disappear too?
Whether a service goes beyond just being fast and convenient isn't decided by the field — it depends on the attitude of the people doing the work.
If it's work where you never have to meet eyes or exchange a word while giving and receiving the service,
if it's a job that just mechanically processes things — so mechanical that a machine is honestly more comfortable — then it will be replaced.
If someone said they'd miss the human tollgate operator once it's replaced by a machine, then it wouldn't have been replaced; or if it was, it would come back.
Wherever basic human feeling exists, the work will survive regardless of the field. Wherever it doesn't need to, technology will fill in.
Lastly, let's look at hand-cut noodles (son-kalguksu).
Most kalguksu shops use machine-made noodles. Machine-made noodles come out uniform and flawless. It's the common example of what speed and convenience have changed.
But have the hand-cut noodle shops gone under? Have they disappeared? No. There are still plenty of hand-cut noodle shops around.
Why would a person go through all that trouble — and even if a master does it, no matter how skilled, the quantifiable precision is no match for a machine — so why haven't these shops disappeared?
Again, by my hunch, I wonder if it's the master's process and presence that's the reason. You know — the so-called "hand-taste"? And on top of that, most of them are supposedly famous spots.
The reasons are subjective. We live in an era where "the feel" matters.
Or rather, the value of that feeling has finally come into its own.
The knowledge, technology, and social systems built in an era where no one had the leisure to savor trivial feelings have stacked up and produced the 4th Industry.
And it will rapidly churn through jobs and occupations.
But in the end, a post-4th-Industry era will come. An era that tries to recover the value of that feeling...
This same pattern has shown up many times in the past.
A hand-to-mouth industrial revolution, rapid substitution and progress, and then, after time passes, a trend of trying to recover the humanity of the past.
For irregular, emotional humans to face the fast and convenient artificial intelligence,
we first have to realize that the very premise of "facing off" is meaningless.
We have to be able to use those tools to preserve our own emotions and values, and to share our humanity with others.
An age of survival-of-the-fittest born out of anxiety, rules and norms born out of settled survival, and now the recovery of humanity grounded in artificial intelligence
— this will be the direction humanity moves in.
Are you a cashier, a guide, a lawyer, a barista? Or is your company running on these kinds of people as its core?
Then first, talk to your customers.
Before saying, "What would you like to order? What do you need?"
Try saying, "The weather's nice today. How has your day been?"
If it's work that lets you share warmth with the customer,
then even the jobs experts say have a 99% replacement rate won't disappear.
