Brian Mathews

English 101

Hofreiter

4-2-13

Technology Taking Our Jobs

In the 19th century, The British textile industry was one of the main

contributors to the start of the Industrial Revolution. Many self-employed British tailors

found themselves out of work with no way to earn income through their profession. It

forced tailors out of their jobs because Britain’s textile industry was more efficient than a

self employed tailor and the quality was still pretty high. They became obsolete very

quickly and if they didn’t find another job, the children and families of these tailors would

soon starve or become homeless. As more technologies were invented during the

Industrial Revolution, more and more professions became outdated which forced many

people to become unemployed. What people don’t realize is that we are still facing the

same problem 200 years later. Technology is slowly replacing human jobs in order to

make production and services cheaper and more efficient. Based on history, becoming

replaced by a machine is inevitable to many people in many areas of work.

Although technology is creating jobs, at the same time it is killing them off at an

even greater rate. Many people are finding themselves no longer needed to carry out

the same job that would be impossible without them 15 years ago. “In the United States,

half of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid middle-class wages, and

the numbers are even more grim in the 17 European countries that use the euro as their

currency. A total of 7.6 million mid-pay jobs disappeared in those countries from January

2008 through last June. Those jobs are being replaced in many cases by machines and

software that can do the same work better and cheaper.” (The Associated Press, Can

smart machines take your job? Middle class jobs increasingly being replaced by

technology) North Carolina State University has recently replaced several humans with

robots in their Library. These robots are called “bookBots” and can go retrieve books for

students on command. Their library has about 1.5 million books and none of them are

displayed on bookshelves anymore. They are stored in 18,000 metal bins that make it

easy for the bookBots to retrieve books, and only take up one-ninth the space that the

bookshelves required. Not only did the technology take over the human’s job, it does it

more efficiently and cheaper.

It’s not just public businesses that are making the transfer. Big corporations are

also replacing people with technology. These big companies have an immense amount

of information to store and manage. 5 years ago this was done by buying large

computers called servers and hiring experts to manage and maintain them. Now,

companies can use something called “cloud computing”. Cloud computing is where they

store all their information on the internet and can retrieve it anytime they want as long

as they have an internet connection. This technology has made many IT managers and

computer experts completely unneeded since there isn’t any actual hardware to

maintain.

The replacement of humans with machines is spreading quickly. There are many

more areas of work that are being replaced as well and the categories just keep

growing. The Associated Press wrote, “Google and Toyota are rolling out cars that can

drive themselves. The Pentagon deploys robots to find roadside explosives in

Afghanistan and wages war from the air with drone aircraft.The advance of technology

is producing wondrous products and services that once were unthinkable.” (The

Associated Press, Can smart machines take your job?....) Even the military is slowly

being replaced. There aren’t too many people that are safe from the threat of losing

their job to a machine. It’s taking such a large toll on us because humans are so easy to

replace and it’s way cheaper. The Associated press also wrote, “In the U.S., more than

1.1 million secretaries vanished from the job market between 2000 and 2010, their job

security shattered by software that lets bosses field calls themselves and arrange their

own meetings and trips. Over the same period, the number of telephone operators

plunged by 64 percent, word processors and typists by 63 percent, travel agents by 46

percent and bookkeepers by 26 percent, according to Labor Department

statistics.” (The Associated Press, Can smart machines take your job?....)

Eventually humans just become a hassle compared to machines especially for simple or

repetitive tasks. There’s nothing anyone can do because these technologies are such a

better option for the business owners.

Starting with the Industrial Revolution, people are slowly becoming obsolete as a

labor force. It’s a fact that machines are more efficient, smarter, and cheaper. They

rarely have to take days off and scarcely make mistakes. Services and jobs operated

through technology generally take up less space and are just an all around better choice

than using humans. From a business owner point of view, it’s a no brainer to use

technology over humans. From the British textile industry all the way to cloud

computing, humans are losing the war for jobs against machines and there isn’t

anything we can do about it.

Part 2

I used many different rhetorical strategies and types of evidence in my essay to

support the argument that technology is taking over our jobs. I used statistics and many

examples as evidence to support my claims. The first statistic I chose to use was, “In

the United States, half of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid

middle-class wages, and the numbers are even more grim in the 17 European countries

that use the euro as their currency. A total of 7.6 million mid-pay jobs disappeared in

those countries from January 2008 through last June. Those jobs are being replaced in

many cases by machines and software that can do the same work better and

cheaper.” (The Associated Press, Can smart machines take your job?....) The

Associated Press is a credible source so it should contain valid information. I thought

this statistic would strengthen my argument because it supported my claim that

technology is taking jobs faster than creating them. The second statistic I used was,

“Over the same period, the number of telephone operators plunged by 64 percent, word

processors and typists by 63 percent, travel agents by 46 percent and bookkeepers by

26 percent, according to Labor Department statistics.” (The Associated Press, Can

smart machines take your job?....) They directly quoted the Labor Department so it

should be valid. It strengthened my argument because it supported my claim that there

are many areas of work being affected by technology. It even gave examples of

technology replacing humans along with percents. One of the first examples I chose to

use in my essay was of the “bookBots” at North Carolina State University. I got it from

the article “Can smart machines take your job?...” and I picked this to use as an

example because it showed that technology is capable of replacing many jobs even in

the education system. I feel like it strengthened my argument because it was a solid

example of one of my main claims. Any claim you make is strengthened by valid

evidence and my example of bookBots is definitely valid evidence. The next example I

chose to use to support my argument was involving Cloud Computing. I chose this as

an example because I thought it was an interesting concept and didn’t make my essay

so boring. It also supported my claim that big corporations are switching to technology

rather than use a human workforce.

As for rhetorical strategies, the first one I used was Pathos in the very beginning

of my essay. The Pathos encouraged the reader to feel sympathy for the tailors losing

their jobs to machines. I think anytime you get the reader to feel the emotion you

intended, it strengthens your argument because your getting the reader to view the

subject the way you want. I also used the strategy “carving out a niche” by writing,

“What people don’t realize is that we are still facing the same problem 200 years later”.

This strategy strengthened my argument because it made the subject I was talking

about appear to be important and unrealized. That would make my essay more

interesting and set it’s topic apart from others. I started one of my paragraphs with,

“Although technology is creating jobs, at the same time it is killing them off at an even

greater rate”, this is a form of Prolepsis/Rebuttal. It helped strengthen my argument

because it immediately disproves one of the possible criticisms that technology also

creates jobs and doesn’t just destroy them. The less criticisms there are the better the

argument is. I didn’t really choose to avoid any certain kind of strategy, I just used the

ones that seemed to work well together and help improve my argument. The evidence

backed up my claims pretty well and my strategies helped strengthen my argument.