Man vs. Machine

In economics, structural unemployment is defined as the unemployment that occurs when there is an imbalance between skilled workers seeking employment and the labor market. Or in other words, when their skills are no longer needed. This happens all the time, throughout human history. Take for example, telephone operators like the ones you see in the movies way back in the day. With the invention of wireless and cellular telephones, those individuals became structurally unemployed. With the alarmingly quick increase in technological advancements it's no big secret that there are some positions that are being passed on from human to machine.

No variety of work is exempt from this truth. Air Force pilot? Unmanned aircrafts. Ford assembly line worker? Robot arms. Doctor? Who knows? And that's what I want to find out. Are those who work in the medical field facing competition, albeit how slight it may be, from machinery? Will there come a time that a collection of metal parts wired to a circuit board are able to do the same task that someone who spent more than half the life they've lived learning how to do? Most would argue against that. They'll say that nothing can beat the sheer instinct and gut that a real human being has. That no matter how advanced healthcare might get, it can not ever function without a certified, old school DOCTOR there on the scene making sure it all works.

Some people however, might be strong advocates of this. Surely it would bring the costs associated with healthcare down, considering the lack of doctor requiring a six or seven figure salary. And a programmed robot just doesn't mess up... a doctor who has been operating on patients for thirty years and can slice open someone with his eyes closed is still human, and might cause accidental injury. If a machine breaks, you take it out back and throw it into the dumpster, but an old man is going to ask for a pension. I don't doubt that there are very nice perks associated with using machinery instead of human beings to do some tasks. Especially the dangerous, meticulous tasks that medical professionals are asked to do.

But could they really find a machine that can sit down with a family and explain to them that their father has only a few weeks left? Could they create an inanimate object capable of sitting down with a patient and discussing how their day went, and how they've been feeling over the past few months? Of course not. Like no other profession I think, doctors are sometimes almost required to have a human side. You're dealing with sick people and their families. I sure as hell would not be interested in taking my sick grandparent to a humanless operating table. In a field that is very sensitive to human feelings, I think it's just overall a bad idea to install a cold piece of metal to take the place of the doctor that people trust with their lives.