The robots are coming. Not to kill you with lasers, or beat you in chess, or even to ferry you around town in a driverless Uber.<\/p>\n
These robots are here to merge purchase orders into columns J and K of next quarter\u2019s revenue forecast, and transfer customer data from the invoicing software to the Oracle database. They are unassuming software programs with names like \u201cAuxiliobits \u2014 DataTable To Json String,\u201d and they are becoming the star employees at many American companies.<\/p>\n
Some of these tools are simple apps, downloaded from online stores and installed by corporate I.T. departments, that do the dull-but-critical tasks that someone named Phil in Accounting used to do: reconciling bank statements, approving expense reports, reviewing tax forms. Others are expensive, custom-built software packages, armed with more sophisticated types of artificial intelligence, that are capable of doing the kinds of cognitive work that once required teams of highly-paid humans.<\/p>\n
White-collar workers, armed with college degrees and specialized training, once felt relatively safe from automation. But recent advances in A.I. and machine learning have created algorithms capable of outperforming doctors<\/a>, lawyers<\/a> and bankers <\/a>at certain parts of their jobs. And as bots learn to do higher-value tasks, they are climbing the corporate ladder.<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n I wrote a big essay for tomorrow\u2019s NYT about robots, the pandemic and why AI poses an increasing threat to white-collar workers. The Zoom-from-home class is not safe! https:\/\/t.co\/WrnaeJWkFK<\/a><\/p>\n — Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) March 6, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n