Robots can do everything, can they give birth?

"What's the future of work? Will gigs replace replace salaried employment, and will robots eventually leave humans with nothing to do? asked J Tirole. Artificial Intelligence is gradually replacing humans in many fields. "Many jobs involving routine (and thus codifiable) tasks have been eliminated: Banking transactions are digitized, cheques are processed by optical readers, call centres use software to shorten the conversations between customer and employee, or even replace humans with bots." But humans will still be necessary because "the human brain is more flexible: A five-year old child can handle some problems better than any computer." Education is the only solution. "If we don't have a system that gives everyone a chance to gain the necessary skills, differences in education and family background will lead to even greater inequality." The labor system has become grossly unfair, wrote Prof C Pizzati. "In ancient Rome, a slave worked a maximum of six hours a day. A third of the year was spent in festivities." "Nothing close to the 13 to 14 hours put in by the average, always-on entrepreneur. Or the 10 hours a regular employee often clocks, which explains why overwork is causing so many deaths across Asia." He thinks that robots will help by taking over low-paid labor and end exploitation of the poor. But what about those who lose jobs? Robots should be nationalised or heavily taxed to pay for those who lose their jobs. Job creation is falling in India although we have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, wrote H Jethmalani. Where demand is huge can criminals be far behind? An industry in fake jobs has arisen which is taking money from vulnerable youngsters, desperate for any job, with false promises. To create jobs the government set up training centers to impart skills to job seekers but as with anything the government does it did not come close to its target, most of the budget being pocketed by the unscrupulous. A survey found that 42% of people are self-employed, 32% are laborers and 20% have salaried jobs, of whom around 70% have no written job contract. A survey by the National Sample Survey Organisation found that 89% of the richest 20% of the population started primary school, compared to 79% of the poorest 20%, but, shockingly, only about 30% of students in the richest 20% went to college. Prof P Bardhan suggests subsidies for employing more people, imparting necessary skills to more youngsters and better marketing facilities to make agriculture profitable. Because of our cultural diversity and exotic cuisine tourism will solve all our problems, wrote Prof N Kaushal. However, whatever robots can do, they cannot give birth. So, the government should supply sexbots to everyone. The population will plunge and there will be jobs for everyone. Easy.