The main dilemmas are whether automation improves productivity and safety while displacing workers, increasing inequality, and shifting power toward employers and system owners. This SL and HL topic falls under 3.7, Robots and autonomous technologies.
Automation occurs when digital systems perform tasks previously completed by people. Robots can replace physical tasks, while autonomous technologies can sense conditions, process data, and act with some independence. Outcomes depend on how organizations redesign work, retrain employees, and distribute productivity gains.
| Dilemma | Opportunity | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Employment | New technical and supervisory roles may emerge. | Routine roles may disappear before workers retrain. |
| Safety | Machines perform dangerous or repetitive tasks. | Monitoring and machine-set targets may intensify. |
| Inequality | Productivity may reduce costs and support growth. | Owners may gain while displaced workers lose security. |
| Human judgement | Automation improves consistency. | Systems may remove discretion, accountability, and experience. |
| Power | Organizations allocate labour efficiently. | Employers and technology companies may control workers and data. |
A common misconception is that automation inevitably eliminates whole occupations. More often, it replaces particular tasks, transforming jobs rather than immediately removing them. The outcome emerges from interactions among digital systems, employers, governments, workers, and education providers, not from technology alone.
System: Amazon uses mobile warehouse robots to move shelves and support order fulfilment. Example specifics: After acquiring Kiva Systems in 2012, Amazon expanded them across fulfilment centres, where people and machines divide the workflow. Impacts and implications: Robots reduce some walking and lifting but raise risks of displacement, surveillance, and unequal access to retraining. Concepts: The case reveals change in labour, power over working conditions, systems with intended and unintended consequences, and values and ethics concerning fairness.
In an IB response, distinguish established impacts from future implications, identify at least two stakeholder groups, and avoid technological determinism. For an evaluate question, weigh benefits against limitations before reaching a supported conclusion.
