Wooten 1

Jacob Wooten

Instructor Samantha Bell

English 1201

3 September 2019

Can we keep up with advancing technology, and how long do we have to do so?

Our society is a complex beast. There are so many avenues and paths to go down, it

would take a lifetime to fully explore 0.1% of it. Technology has shaped it dramatically over the

years however. From literature, to automobiles, to smartphones, they affect our lives. I always

hear about how nobody is safe from the ever-evolving automation of products and services. But

how prevalent is this, and how soon will we fall?

When I was deciding on my major, this topic influenced me a lot, believe it or not. From

YouTube videos, to radio stations, and even television broadcasts, automation of human

activities is discussed everywhere. Human’s are developing robots and other processes to save

their company money. When deciding my major, future prepping was a major part. If say the

technology keeps advancing at the pace it currently is at, nobody will have jobs and our economy

will crash. Our lives will be changed forever. This was and still is disturbing to me. I wouldn’t

want to spend thousands on schooling, in order to be put out of a job a few short years later.

After everything was said and done though, I realized there was no stopping it though.

The way I feel about this topic is complex. One day I think to myself, our society is

screwed so why bother. Another day, I believe we can solve it by adapting or other methods. I

think that we can succeed, but like everything it’s going to be complex. The politics of the issue
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will be another limiting factor. I believe with enough work, research, automation can be a benefit

to us and our jobs. There is no way this will happen overnight though. I have done a tiny bit of

research into this topic. However, like I previously stated, this issue is complex. With the

knowledge I have in it, it does not even close to the full extent of the issues.

I need hard facts about everything though. Like comparing the number of jobs in say

2001 to 2016 that have been lost to automation. Googling articles and other papers will be a good

start. But there is also lots of video sources in this topic that I know of. What does the technology

innovation of robotic automation curve look like? When did this phenomenon occur? These are

two good questions to start with. At the end of this, I hope I find good news and feel less stressed

about automation. Hopefully with this paper, I can inform others about the importance of this

topic as well.