Are computers taking our jobs? This question has been increasingly asked as technology continues to advance at a rapid pace.

“Coming over here and taking our jobs…” – it’s the most common phrase that tends to be uttered by xenophobes and supporters of right-wing governmental policies the world over.

Let’s talk about it!

Blaming migrants for driving down wages and claiming that they receive free social benefits is a very common bar-room monologue from people who may well have led unsuccessful lives in poorly paid jobs but are determined to find someone to blame it on other than themselves.

A singularly strong example is the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) referendum decision, polled back in 2016, to leave the European Union (EU). A cabal of right-wing politicians managed to persuade 52% of those who voted in the UK’s Brexit choice to opt for ‘Leave’, blaming European migrants for the UK population’s misfortunes.

In the transitional seven-year period ever since the UK’s economy has sunk below nearly all of its previous close EU and international rivals. Indeed, a study commissioned by the Bank of England recently indicated that business investment in the UK has probably been reduced by up to 23% due to its decision to leave the EU trading bloc.  

The pick of the crop:

The most ironic outcome of the populist-fueled decision for the UK to leave the EU is that all the poorly paid jobs that were almost exclusively done by migrants from Poland and Eastern Europe have now become unfilled vacancies. Such roles paying minimum wage, often with punishingly long hours, such as fruit picking and working in care homes for the elderly are now unfillable.

Many European workers have returned to the EU, blaming either the fact that they felt unwelcome or the paperwork to stay in the UK was too complex post-Brexit.

People sit at home nowadays, tapping into computers to find rewarding and better-paid work; but during this online hunting, cyber-security may well be compromised, so job seekers would do well to install a VPN (virtual private network).

VPNs have an impact on online security, as they help prevent resumes from being maliciously altered by hackers, emails from being hijacked, and important identity details from being stolen.

But even the most basic job vacancies haven’t been taken up by unemployed UK citizens, who (not unsurprisingly) prefer to remain unemployed rather than rise at 5 am to break their backs picking cabbages in a freezing muddy field somewhere.

Rise of the machines:

To add to people’s troubles, now there’s a new threat on the horizon to citizens’ expectations of employment – and it’s not just minimum-wage jobs that are going to be affected.

The ‘rise of the machines’ – or rather the ability of computers to carry out tasks hitherto performed only by people, will lead to wholesale job losses in almost every walk of life. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and specifically machine learning (ML) have enabled algorithms to do things better than humans.

You don’t have to reward computers with holiday pay, and they don’t take sick leave. They work 24/7/365. Taxi drivers will be replaced within the next decade by driverless cars. Surgeons who perform routine operations will be replaced by camera-driven robotic tools. Accountants and clerical jobs will be superseded by AI-driven finance bots.

Marketing professionals and creatives especially may soon be replaced by AI. Look at image-generating platforms like MidJourney or Jasper Art, a clear threat to the production of analog or even digital photography.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising strategies and Google Analytics (GA4) will soon be telling us how to target marketing, and various software platforms will create the content for it. Even incredibly talented, stunningly handsome copywriters might find platforms like Chat GPT taking over their work in basic marketing content creation. Perish the thought!

Furthermore, our increasing reliance on technology will certainly mean the need for similarly augmented vigilance in online security, which is where the need for VPNs will become ever more relevant. From using the Internet of Things (IoT) to control our homes and workplaces to everything being done online, hackers could have a field day impersonating us or stealing financial details.

Staying safe using a VPN:

VPNs are a simple but effective way of protecting our online security. They place an encrypted tunnel between our internet service provider (ISP) and any internet-connected device in our home. This prevents hackers from finding out where we are, or indeed who we are, so they tend to leave us alone and find easier hacking targets.

Consider the additional benefits of a VPN: being able to choose a server in another part of the world to access geo-restricted streaming content like Netflix or the BBC’s iPlayer in the UK is probably worth a VPN installation itself.

Additionally, a VPN removes the possibility of your ISP ‘throttling’ your data connection (i.e. slowing it down to a crawl) to prevent customers from downloading too much data when streaming, P2P file sharing, or gaming. If you’re using a VPN, your ISP can’t throttle you if they don’t know who or where you are!

Then there is the useful facility of choosing a VPN server in a desired location to avoid dynamic pricing. There is a theory that online accommodation and ticketing portals display differing prices to various audiences, depending upon their ability to pay.

In short, you might get offered a cheaper rate on a hotel room if your IP address indicates that you live in a poorer area or country than a wealthy one. Again, this is something denied by such service providers – but that doesn’t mean it still happens. 

In Summary

Many jobs will soon be taken by AI, especially in the marketing arena, and our lives will become ever-more enmeshed online over the next two decades, whether we like it or not. Unless you want to live as a hermit in a Himalayan cave – you’re stuck with this brave new world. One way to ensure that you at least stay safe is to install a VPN from a reputable provider.