The clergy and scholars of the 16th century felt threatened by the invention of the printing press, which was used to copy and distribute religious scriptures and the Bible itself. The assembly line in the 19th and 20th century deepened the laborer’s misery by introducing automation, which affected jobs, wages, as well as workplace security. Now in the fourth industrial revolution, the rise of AI is underway, and it is knocking on our doors with the technological promises that can replace a human itself.

The qualms of AI replacing the workforce is an extended argument of AI replacing humans itself. People do not quite understand what AI is because it seems abstract, and thus reserve judgments for what is unknown is terrifying. Just like the previous trends of innovation, which has a disrupting impact on socio-economic system of our world, it seems like the rise of AI is just another wave. But what is evident is that human race is destined to innovation.

AI is a disrupting technology and with its use in automation can significantly disrupt the labor markets. Just like the assembly line increased production while at the same time replaced manual workers with machines, the strength of AI lies in its use of machine learning on vast amount of data and the speed to which any human cannot compete. The sophisticated self-driving cars in near future would not require drivers, thus changing the whole transportation and supply-chain industry’s landscape. The Cambridge University’s R&D program on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs), or more precisely: ‘Killer Robots’ in future will ensure that we will not be needing human soldiers. And the truly terrifying example would be the Boston Dynamics’s BigDog that could replace our pet dog. No wonder the possibilities of replacement are real.

This all seems terrifying and at the same time it is inevitable to occur. But, just like the assembly line in the past changed jobs of labors from manual workers to machine operators, this wave of AI will bring new opportunities. Just like the Internet, we used to think that it would destroy brick-and-mortar businesses and threatened jobs of that time, however, what happened was new jobs emerged from places we did not even imagine. So, 'one door closes and another one opens', as the saying goes; it would reflect in the future when AI function as job creator.

So, instead of fearing from the change embrace it. It is highly likely that AI instead of replacing us, end up merging with us. The process has already started. There is already a cybernetic relationship between humans and the machines. Our smart phones are the machine extension of us, and we function as data nodes in a collected network of social media. Hence, the future of AI would be human-centric where the change that the innovation bring would enhance our capability and intelligence, instead of replacing us. We just have to be cautious and oversee its development, and possibly regulate it in the future.