Automation: Pros and cons

Do you remember that years ago, to withdraw money,  people used to go to the bank, and then wait in lines for hours for the teller (a person who counts and gives you money as a withdraw from the bank) to count and give their money, an then finally take their money. Today, banks use what is called an ATM (Automatic Teller machine) to make the entire process of depositing use what is called an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) to make the entire process of depositing and withdrawing money a lot faster. These ATMSs have now replaced the teller who counted and gave the money manually. This is a very prominent example of automation.

Automation is that branch of technology that makes something consume lesser time, money or effort/labour. This time and money can be utilized for various other purposes. The ATM is a very good example of automation. Like any other thing, automation comes with its set of pros and cons that make it helpful for some people and unhelpful for some others. Let’s understand how it can be exact opposite for two sets of people.

Let’s take the same example of the ATM. The ATM is very beneficial for the people as well as he bank since it has made the process of depositing and withdrawing a lot faster for the customers of the bank and very cost-effective for the bank. A bank required at least 10 tellers that would give the money to the people who wanted to withdraw the money. Those tellers also demanded salaries to be paid by the bank. Hence, and ATM has been considered cost-effective as the bank no longer has to worry about paying the tellers.

Also, the people had to wait in lines for hours to get their withdrawn money from the bank. So, the ATM is beneficial for the customers as well, because it has saved a lot of time for them. Now, they just insert their card, type the PIN code, enter the amount, and they easily take their money. This process does not take more than 5 minutes to complete. A teller on the other hand was very time-consuming; as first the people had to wait for hours in the lines, and then the teller would take another 10-15 minutes counting the money and then finally handing it over to the people. As you can see, this is very helpful for the customers and the service provider (the bank).

However, there are a few people who have suffered in this scenario of automation. They are the tellers. When the ATMs did not come by, the tellers had their jobs and the salary that they earned from their job was the main source of income for their families. Automation and ATMs, however, have took their jobs which has in turn caused serious financial problems in their family. They are not able to find another safe and secure source of income again as the competition today is much harder than it was in the previous years.

To get qualified for a job, people today need to make their merit the highest. Only then it is possible to get selected. Hence, it has resulted very harmful for these people as their jobs have vanished because of this new technology of automation.

People today need to have more than one skill to get successful. One skill cannot be considered as helpful in today’s world. Multiple skills generate more chances and opportunities to get selected for newer and safer sources of income. A technology is something that is beneficial for everyone, not only for a particular group of people. So, we need to start thinking more and more about this and start developing ways in which these people also do not get harmed because of this new technology of automation.

Being successful not only means having loads and loads of money, but being successful means having loads and loads of knowledge; which a person who has worked hard all his lives has. Imagine, there are two walls, and you are asked to climb one of them. The difference between the two walls is that in the first wall, there is just one piece of rock that is projected out of the wall; and in the other wall, there are multiple rocks that are projected out. Which one would be easier to climb? Obviously, it would be the wall with multiple rocks projected out.

Similarly, to climb the wall of success, we need more rocks to climb up and be successful. And once we are successful, we should lend our hand to other people so that they can also climb up this wall and become successful. Today, we have the independence to choose whatever we like the most. And so, it is not compulsory to choose any particular topic as our ambition. So, if we use this privilege, and do hard work for success, we can become successful. It doesn’t matter if you like singing, dancing, writing, coding; but it does matter if you pay some attention and work on it to turn it from your hobby to your ambition. Of course, you can choose multiple topics as your ambition.

Automation is one of those skills that we humans have developed so that we can do a lot more than we thought we could do. Discovering new things about the universe is something that humans as a species has an ambition from the start. There are a lot of good and bad things that the humans have done to reach this approach. Computers have made the job much easier, and automation is something that can replace computers as well. We are always using some form of automation in some form or the other. So, it is important to work on what you like, and turn your hobby into your ambition. And if you work on what you love, then you can take us to a next level, even ahead of the level that automation has taken us.