The 21st century is rapidly coming to be defined by the rise of artificial intelligence, which threatens to upend countless industries and reshape our personal lives. The emergence of intelligent machines hasn’t gone unnoticed by people, either, as countless doomsday predictions have emerged centered on the idea of robots coming to steal our jobs and replace us in every way possible. Despite all the gloomy predictions surrounding automation, however, there are a number of jobs that AI is unlikely to ever take over, regardless of how advanced it becomes.
Here are 5 jobs AI is unlikely to take over, and why humans will remain a vital part of the market for the foreseeable future.
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Cybersecurity professionals are still needed
With digital technology having taken on an unprecedented importance in our lives, it’s only natural that the role of a cybersecurity professional will continue to grow more essential in the future. After all, virtually everyone has sensitive data stored on a device or on the cloud in this day and age, and we rely on cybersecurity professionals to ensure that nefarious hackers don’t make off with our personal information. While AI will come to supercharge cybersecurity efforts, it can’t supplant humans in the industry entirely, and tech-savvy workers will still find themselves in high demand for years to come.
Experts at Bloomberg have clearly made that case that humans will only become more important to cybersecurity as time goes on, not less. Indeed, as certain security systems become entirely autonomous, we’ll need a human touch involved to ensure that human intervention can occur when it’s needed.
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You’ll still visit a human doctor
If you’re worried about sitting on a wheelchair in the doctor’s office only to be greeted by a machine, you can rest easy. AI is disrupting the healthcare industry but it’s largely incapable of replacing human experts, who provide not only useful medical information but also a friendly face for those who are in immense pain. Healthcare will always need humans, especially since machines struggle to determine when a patient is lying or when a child is giving unclear or unsatisfactory medical information. Friendly doctors and nurses will be supplemented by intelligent programs that help the diagnose, but they won’t be replaced entirely.
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Journalists aren’t going anywhere
Journalists everywhere found themselves to be the latest group of professionals terrified about their future after it was announced that the Washington Post had a robot reporter which published 850 articles in a single year. What few people understand, however, is that automaton and AI in the media is similar to automation and AI elsewhere; it supplements, rather than supplants, the existing expertise of human professionals.
Robots can produce short, choppy stories about basic topics, but they’ll never be able to tackle investigative reporting that holds those in power accountable. Similarly, community journalists will still be needed to cover local issues, and political events will require the presence of objective humans who aren’t a member of either side to record what occurred. The robots will help them, not replace them, in this effort.
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Legal expertise takes a human touch
Many people dislike lawyers, but there are few reasons to think they’ll be replaced by even more chilling robots in the near-future. Legal expertise will always require a human touch, with certain aspects of the legal system being far too important to turn over to the machines. Being a judge, for instance, is something that’s effectively impossible to automate. Society will continue to require impartial, intelligent judges to manage the dispensation of justice for as long as human beings exist to rob and cheat one another.
While lawyers in the future may automate some of the more mundane processes of their day, like filing court reports or dispensing bills to clients, they’ll still be needed in the courtroom. Similarly, everyday people who find themselves in legal hot water will want human expertise and a friendly face to turn to in their darkest hour. Do you really want to turn to a robot for advice after getting into an automobile collision? Are you comfortable turning the management of your will over to an algorithm? You can expect lawyers to remain more flesh than machine in the near-future.
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School teachers are here to stay
You may have dreamed about a robot tutor when you were growing up, but human school teachers are here to stay. Being a teacher is about much more than imparting knowledge from a textbook into the brains of your students – it’s about connecting with kids, helping them achieve their goals, and equipping them with the knowledge, social skills, and empathy needed to make it as a successful citizen. There are plenty of reasons to think that AI can never replace a good teacher, and those pining for a career in the field of education are unlikely to have their hopes dashed by a machine anytime soon.
