‘It’s the beginning of the end!’ wailed Mike. ‘You see, we’ll all be gone by Christmas. Unemployed!’
We all perked up at the thought.
Anyway, you’re wondering what’s happened to distress the usually calm and collected Mike. Our benevolent rulers have bought a robotic lawnmower. (Why the designers chose that name and not robomo, I can’t imagine.) Since Mike is our main mower, and as the oldest, gets a bit paranoid about losing his job (he has no need to, everyone loves him and our place of work would decay to a soulless husk within weeks without him) he sees the robomo as a direct threat.
‘Look at him, evil, lurking,’ said Mike as the happy little robot trundled along. The rest of us started making plans for googly eyes or deely boppers to decorate our new robot colleague, while Mike made plans for a terrible accident to occur. Our boss kindly informed Mike that this robot is not seen as a replacement, but as a way to free up our time for other gardening, but Mike isn’t convinced.
‘This is how it starts!’ he whispered to me.
Have any of you had to worry about automation taking your job?
When computers first started to get clever enough to do our jobs, they promised us a life filled with leisure instead of work. I don’t why that suddenly became Humans, you are obsolete! Keep out the way and starve quietly!
inkbiotic 
Paranoia abounds!!
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Mikes right. This is how it starts. Robomo works without pay everyday and holidays and never gets sick or complains. But it will take a long to replace you guys. Id say 5 years or more. Robomo will fail and be replaced Xmas with Robomo-2.0.
It will do a better job, but still not as good as you guys. Change is coming, but not yet. You guys are still the best.
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Aw! Can you be my boss? Is this something that worries you? (not the mower, just in general) Or have you got a way to be indispensable?
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Been through this myself. I am the key operator (go to person) for 200 + printer’s. But the tech is getting so smart the company has laid off 2 other people. I’m still here because I know how to connect users to equipment using software only I have and know how to use. Indispensable…for now.
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I’m glad you managed to protect your job, but of course you shouldn’t have to.
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True 🤨
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Should Mike take the lawn into his own hands and accidentally step on robomo?
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The way he was looking at our new robot friend, I think being stepped on is the best he can hope for! 😨
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But human beings do not react quite so badly to a casually spilled mug of water…
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Or a hose inserted into the engine!
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I was wondering if you could checkout my new piece on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & JOBS OF THE PAST!And I would really appreciate it if you could comment some feedback to improve the writing style. Looking forward to hearing from you. – Kiran
https://kiranninprogress.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/artificial-intelligence-jobs-of-the-past/
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