Will robots rule your office?

I, robot will do your job for you better, faster and cheaper

By Aisha Oakley, Head of Consultancy & Outsourcing

Can you imagine if your job was made obsolete by technology? Can you imagine if that was to become your reality? The HR function being replaced by computers with for example recruitment being completely automated. Now according to the Discretion in Hiring survey from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) computers are better than people at hiring.

When selection choices were based solely on algorithm decisions candidates remained in their roles for around eight per cent longer than those chosen by people. However the study only looked at 300,000 hires in low-skill service sectors across 15 companies. So, I would say for now HR doesn’t have a great deal to fear.

But there is a whole raft of roles that do have cause for concern.  Now here comes another statistic -  would you believe that 47% of modern day jobs are likely to be replaced by machines. The Oxford research paper The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation also claims that male workers stand more than a 70% chance of being replaced. The reason being that male jobs are more process driven and do not require empathy.

Ahhhh, but the revenge of the robots is here. Well, not quite but now that I have your attention there’s a humanoid receptionist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Nadine looks human with shoulder length brown hair but the really disturbing thing is that she has her own personality. An example conversation between her creator Professor Nadia Thalmann, as quoted in the Daily Mail certainly, ran a shiver down my spine.

'You are a beautiful and attractive social robot,' says Professor Thalmann. To which Nadine replies: 'Thank you. You look attractive too.'

While in another exchange Nadine responds perfectly to negative sentiments as quoted in the Daily Mail. When Professor Thalmann says 'I hate you', Nadine replies: 'Tell me more about that'.

Not only are machines developing emotions but they are evoking emotional responses from people too. And just recently week The Guardian ran a story about how a virtual assistant called Amy Ingram has been sent Red Bull drinks, chocolate and flowers as tokens of gratitude. This is despite the senders knowing that she is a computer!

It’s clear that the mundane tasks are likely to be replaced by robots but with humanoid receptionists behaving with emotion, what are the implications for the rest of us? For now an HR department run by humans making recruitment decisions is safe.

If you would like a friendly human helping your SME with recruitment speak to us today by calling 0207 977 9200 or email us on enquiries@bradfield.co.uk

Picture source: The Straits Times & Nanyang Technological University