Are Humans Even Necessary?

The development of technology is reducing the need for human workers in many industries. But if this has some unsettling implications for the future, it also offers real reason for hope.

- Evan Dashevsky

A lone researcher recently made a remarkable discovery that may save millions of lives. She identified a chemical compound that effectively targets a key growth enzyme in Plasmodium vivax, the microscopic parasite responsible for most of the world’s malaria cases. The scientist behind this new weapon against one of humanity’s great biological foes didn’t expect praise, a bonus check, or even so much as a hardy pat on the back for her efforts. In fact, “she” lacks the ability to expect anything.

This breakthrough came courtesy of Eve, a “robotic scientist” that resides at the University of Manchester’s Automation Lab. Eve was designed to find new disease-fighting drugs faster and cheaper than her human peers. She achieves this by using advanced artificial intelligence to form original hypotheses about which compounds will murder malicious microbes (while sparing human patients) and then conducting controlled experiments on disease cultures via a pair of specialized robotic arms.

Eve is still under development, but her proven efficacy guarantees that Big Pharma will begin to “recruit” her and her automated ilk in place of comparatively measured human scientists who demand annoying things like “monetary compensation,” “safe work environments,” and “sleep.”

If history is any guide, human pharmaceutical researchers won’t disappear entirely—at least not right away. What will probably happen is that the occupation will follow the path of so many others (assembly line worker, highway toll taker, bank teller) in that the ratio of humans to non-sentient entities will tilt dramatically.

Machines outperforming humans is a tale as old as the Industrial Revolution. But as this process takes hold in the logarithmically evolving Information Age, many are beginning to question if human workers will have any place in the future economy.