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ESSAY
Subject: Division of labor
CRITICALLY DISCUSS THE HUMAN REPLACEMENT EFFECTS OF NEW TECHNOLOGY. TO WHAT EXTEND IS IT POSSIBLE TO REMOVE HUMANS FROM WORK ALLTOGETHER?
Technology is maybe the most major factor that determines the rate of development of modern societies. The rapid evolution of technology started around 1940s, when computers begun to emerge. In the beginning computers were used only for calculations and were impractical. For less than seventy years, technology developed so rapidly, that now our society is totally dependent
on it. This dependency and to some sort addictiveness generates some really basic question like “To what extent is it possible to remove humans from work altogether?” or “Is it possible that machines can overtake human beings and become their masters”.
The answers to these questions cannot be definite because there are a lot of factors that influence the cooperation between human beings and technology in general. In my opinion, however, technology should only serve to perform automated processes and management of information, but the decision-making and development of new ideas should be left to humans.
I think that technology should serve two main purposes: automation and information. Production processes, nowadays, is common to be performed by machines. This is effective in terms of quality, cost, time and control of the process. A good example may be the rapid development of the automobile industry. It is hard nowadays for us to imagine a car manufacturing plant using people to assemble the vehicles. In this, respect technology offers possibilities that human cannot physically meet. On the other hand, the production process of such a plant is totally monitored and controlled by some sort of software as to assure quality and control. This software has the ability capture, store, manipulate and distribute information. Technology offers information that is suitable for the end user. In the current example, the manager responsible for the production of vehicles knows at any point of time the vital information for the productions process. The software that he uses can give him information for the capacity, current failures or a report for the current condition and productiveness of any given process. Based on this information the manager can make educated decisions, which he can distribute to the owners of the company via e-mail. The production software is very commonly interconnected with the accounting one, so that the calculations of an accountant are minimized. In this way in modern companies, almost every process that involves any mechanical, automate, or control process is run partly or entirely by technology. The technology, both software and hardware, is designed to serve for the benefit of humans.
This common use of technology transfers the skills that a human needs to another level. These skills can be generally divided into two categories. First, are the action-oriented skills. These skills are usually acquired by a knowledge based on experience and through physical performance of tasks. However, nowadays, technology is dominating this type of skills. They are acquired by science and performed by technology. There is no need for a worker to acquire skills for physically cutting iron, since he can acquire skills to manage the machine that does that, or there is no need for an accountant to manually make calculations since he can use a computer. The amount of action-oriented skills is now over dominated by the amount of intellective skills that a person needs. The intellective skills are involved in knowing how to operate with a certain technology. A worker that used to cut iron now is required to have the intellective skill to know how to operate the machine that is now performing the physical process. This knew type of skills require a person to understand the internal structure and the functional