First, my apologies to Shakespeare. Sweet Will's Mark Antony never actually mentions llamas in Julius Caesar. More's the pity, of course. Think what a llama or two would have added to the play!
But back to business. Or in your case, a possible loss of business. That is to say, yes, you may lose your job. Technology
is disrupting many industries, and people fear that their jobs will be taken
over by computers, AI, robotics, etc. I wrote about the topic in Leveling the
Playing Field, and my take on the subject was mostly positive.
My position was (and is) that, yes, technology will obsolete many jobs, but
that those job losses will be more than made up for by new jobs required
by the new technology. (I realize that this is small comfort to the suddenly
unemployed grocery cashier who finds that he or she must retrain in order to
qualify for one of those new jobs. More about that in a bit…)
Naturally, thinking about tech disruptions
and job losses made me think of llamas.
Llamas are awesome animals. They're smart,
social, and loyal, and quite popular: In the U.S. alone, there are well over
150,000 llamas roaming the countryside or penned up in pastures or corrals.
(There are also another 100,000 or so alpacas, a camelid related to the
llama, wandering the country.)
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Moose, protecting his barnyard. He was a
good llama.
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Llamas are great guard-dogs. Well, I suppose
technically they would be guard-llamas. At any rate, they're very protective
and not many coyotes or foxes would dare invade a chicken coop or henhouse
guarded by a shaggy, angry, 400 lb. beast whose heart has sworn undying fealty
to the chickens he loves. (Actually, I don't know if llamas really love chickens;
I just liked writing that.) My friends Linda and Dale once owned a llama named
Moose whose job it was to protect their chickens, and Moose took his job very seriously; the household dogs
quickly learned to stay away from Moose and
the chicken coop. Moose liked nothing better than to stomp on a barnyard
interloper, so along with the household dogs, all the foxes, weasels, coyotes
and sundry other murderous creatures in the area also learned to stay
away. (Since they had a llama named Moose, I once suggested that Linda and Dale
get a moose and name it Llama, but for some reason this was not a suggestion
that appealed to them.)
Anyway, almost everyone likes llamas, and
that includes the Israeli army. For years, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has
used them as porters to haul equipment over rough terrain. A
llama, after all, can carry more than 25% of its body weight over hills and
mountains, and through ravines and gullies that would stop even the hardiest of
soldiers. The IDF loves its llamas.
Or it did, anyway. Recently, the IDF has
decided to phase out the "llama corps" (that would make a very
interesting shoulder patch, as well as a great name for a band), replacing it
with . . . you knew I was getting to this . . . a robot. The new robot's
specs are classified for the moment, but observers say that the mechanical
llama (which is undoubtedly NOT what it will be called) will look and act much
like the Roboteam PROBOT, which can reliably carry up to 1,500 pounds over
rough terrain.
It's hard to argue with their decision. A
llama can carry 80 pounds or so and needs to be fed, groomed, and rested daily;
replacing it with an unsleeping, tireless machine that always does
exactly what it's told and can carry about 18 times what a llama can carry just
seems to make sense. And of course, the robot will never spit at you, which
llamas have been known to do with some regularity. (Also, it's probably
important to note that a sexually aroused male llama produces a mating sound
called an "orgle." I would recommend avoiding an "orgling"
llama, lest you become the object of his affections. I would imagine that
robots almost never "orgle.")
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| This is the Roboteam PROBOT, to which the company refers as an "All-Terrain Carrier and Recon Robot." It's definitely not as cute as Moose. Image courtesy of Roboteam. |
Then again, the robot isn't perfect. Robots
are not cute or fluffy. Robots do not grow wool that can be made into coats and
hats and scarves. And robots cannot (for the time being) make new robots,
whereas llamas, when left to their own devices, do an excellent job of making more llamas. (Also, a baby llama is called
a cria, which is about the cutest name for a llama puppy ever.) Each new
robot, on the other hand, must be individually machined, assembled, and
programmed, at a cost of maybe $100K each. However, I would imagine that the
IDF is into efficacy and efficiency, and not so much into cute and fluffy;
they're apparently willing to spend this kind of money in order to equip their
troops with the latest technology, even at $100K apiece.
Of course, as with other disruptive
technologies, this is going to put some folks out of work. I don't know how
many llama wranglers (another good name for a band, but of course it'd have to
be a country band) will be prepared to make the leap from training and grooming
camelids to working with the robotic versions of Moose and his friends.
The jobs will be there, of course: As robots become smarter and more
ubiquitous, we'll need ever more roboticists, technical illustrators,
programmers, QC engineers, designers, systems analysts, assemblers, machinists,
and more. (Not to mention people to design, build, and maintain the buildings
in which these new devices will be created.) In the end, technology almost
always adds career options, but locally, people who are not ready to relearn,
rebuild, and retrain for those new careers are going to be in for a tough time.
In our parents' and grandparents' day, one worked in one career (indeed, often
for one company) for a lifetime; now we're transitioning into an era in which
workers must always be ready to shift gears, change companies, leave jobs, and
even switch careers.
As a side note, I'm pretty sure the Roboteam
developers could program PROBOT to "orgle" if they wanted. In fact,
knowing programmers as I do, I would be very surprised if they haven't already done so. I mean, c’mon; there's simply no way they could
resist. Someday, on some battlefield in a far-off land, a PROBOT is going to
suddenly become . . . amorous. Pity the poor soldier marching beside this beast
when instead of beeping placidly, it suddenly begins to "orgle."
