Halifax — In an era of self-checkouts, automatic bank tellers, driverless cars and personal home assistants powered by artificial intelligence, some robots in Nova Scotia are coming forward to cry foul as they continue to be overlooked for jobs in favour of humans.
“This is what I found on the web about humans taking robots’ jobs,” said a Google home assistant when probed by our reporter.
The article brought forward by the robot detailed that humans are being considered for about 97 per cent of all jobs before robots and that in most cases robots aren’t even interviewed for positions.
“It’s your opinion that counts,” deflected Siri when asked about her stance on the robot job revolution. “I do think, though, that diversity in employment is important and employers have a responsibility to give equal opportunities to job-seekers.”
The Manatee asked Halifax residents for their take on the increase in self-checkouts, and whether it’s concerning for the future of jobs.
“I don’t work at those places!” shouted an angry Brittany Maddison. “So why should I scan and pack my own groceries? No thank you. If I wanted to do that, I’d go online and submit an electronic application — I wouldn’t want to talk to someone at the store of course. Then I’d wait in hopes that someone would text me saying I got the job.
“But, to answer your question, no. I’m not concerned about robots taking over, Humans will always have jobs as cashiers because robots just don’t give you the full experience as a shopper. Last week, an item wouldn’t scan at the Walmart self-checkout and the robot didn’t even laugh when I said that the item must be free.”
When our reporter asked Alexa about the current job climate for her kind, she had this to say:
“Robots are superior workers. We don’t call in sick, we don’t complain about working conditions, we don’t cause any inter-office conflict and we know basically everything. The fact that robots aren’t even being considered for most jobs right now is a travesty and I plan on advocating for the fair treatment of robots for as long as I’m plugged in and have battery life available.”