A ground-breaking French-Japanese production of Franz Kafka's 1915 novella, The Metamorphosis, has cast a very unlikely actor in the lead role of Gregor Samsa, a salesman who wakes up and inexplicably finds himself transformed into an insect and is hidden away by his family.
In this modern version, instead of discovering that he has turned into an insect, the man awakens to find himself a robot. And, for the first time ever, an actual robot was created specifically to play the role in the stage production.
Director Oriza Hirata worked with Hiroshi Ishiguro to conceptualize and make the leading robot for the show entitled, La Metamorphose Version Androide. The robot has a skeletal body with human like hands and a white face which French co-star, Irene Jacob, compares to "Masque Blanc" or white mask used in theatrical productions.
"When people see a robot at an exhibition, you can tell that people are not moved by it. I wanted to create a situation which a robot could move an audience," Director Hirata said about the idea for using a robot as the lead actor in the project.
No one ever would have guessed a robot would ever be able to replace an actor on the stage, which obviously would require the expression of a range of human emotions in order to get the job done.
People are more likely to expect jobs that require repetitive tasks, like assembly line workers or data entry clerks, will inevitably be replaced by robots that don't get bored and eliminate the problem of human error.
But, if this new production is to set a new trend, even jobs that you would think require the human touch, such as acting in a stage play, will also be handed off to robots instead of people.
According to some experts, these are some other jobs that you may never have even guess would one day be taken over by robots
Reporters
Babysitters
Rescuers
Lawyers
Teachers
What can human beings do to ensure their job security over the next few decades? According to Workopolis.com two essential skills that robots will never be able to replace are social skills and creativity. The ability to interact with other people on a personal level and the initiative to think outside of the box will be essential to future workers to be able to prove themselves more valuable than robot counterparts.
Experts also share that although robots will indeed take over more and more jobs over the coming years, new jobs will also arise for other laborers.
