Commentary: Technology is rapidly replacing human hands

Is humanity headed in the wrong direction? One could easily argue that with every technological advancement, another family goes hungry because of the obsolescence of the handmade concept.

Saying a robot is better than the average human employee is a terrifying concept. When did the need to manufacture an item in the cheapest way possible create a scenario where a pair of hard-working hands were not enough?

Advancements in technology are stunting global economic growth and robbing an entire generation of their ability to feed, shelter and support themselves and their families. The technological revolution is leaving people jobless.

According to the New York Daily News, more than 1.1 million secretaries were displaced from the job market in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010. They are unnecessary now that their bosses can use software that fits in the palm of their hands to organize their own meetings and trips.

Humanity has reached the tipping point. Living situations are changing, and not in the way past generations had envisioned.

According to NBC news, by 2013 1.2 million robots were working worldwide, in essence one robot per 5,000 people. It also said that in the future robots would be our pharmacists, lawyers and writers.

As a student striving to achieve a pharmacy license, I am heartbroken by even the slightest possibility that a pharmacist’s job might be taken by a robot.

Human interaction will decline as machinery takes over occupations, yet it is the human who made the robot. So it is easy to see that we are in fact responsible for displacing ourselves from work. We cannot beat what we created.

We have arrived at a critical crossroads. Constant progress is leading to an inhumane world, where pennies saved are jobs lost and calculated movements of cold, hard steel are replacing the warmth and finesse of a human touch.

TINA BGDOIAN is a graduating senior majoring in public health science at UC Irvine.