A recent study from the Pew Research Center showed that most Americans believe that the robots are coming to take over in the workplace. Surprisingly, most think that other jobs are in jeopardy, but their particular jobs are pretty safe.
The survey released on Thursday questioned 2,000 adults and showed that 65 percent of them expect that 5 decades from now, computers and robots will do most of the work being done by humans today.
However, when it gets close to home, the respondents were not worried so much. A large 80 percent of those surveyed said that they expect their jobs to still exist 50 years from now.
"There's a real disconnect between what people think will happen in the abstract and the extent to which they think it will impact them," said Aaron Smith, associate director of research at Pew.
These expectations are both seen in most of the survey respondents regardless of age, employment type, household income and level of education. Among those with higher incomes and higher educational attainment, a slightly more skepticism was displayed.
But those who do manual labor with lesser incomes and lower educational attainment have showed more confidence that their jobs will still remain the same.
Even if the majority of the respondents believe that automation and robotics will dominate the workplace of the future, few see that their jobs are in danger.
Of more importance to them, and more so with those involved in manual labor, is the probability that they could lose their job due to poor company management, collapsing economy, and other workers who are willing to accept lower wages.
The survey also revealed that only about 11 percent of Americans think their employer would replace them with robots or software. Only a few said they were afraid they would lose their jobs because of their lack of skills.
