Robots in the workplace will be a very popular idea because they will eliminate labor costs. Pilots will be the first to go because pilots are incredibly expensive and their jobs are largely automated already.

Let's say that, in 2015, one airline decides to completely automate the cockpit and eliminate its pilots. Since pilots are expensive, that airline will have a real price advantage over its competitors. That airline will also have far more scheduling flexibility because it will not have to worry about crew availability.

After that first airline makes the leap to the robotic cockpit, every airline will do the same thing. Competitive pressure will leave the other airlines with no choice. Southwest Airlines has shown us just how sensitive the airline industry is to lower prices.

The complete elimination of pilots from the airline industry will take just a few years. The 66,000 pilots in the Air Line Pilots Association will be out of work. These pilots are people who have spent thousands and thousands of hours training in their chosen profession. They have high salaries as well -- up to $250,000 per year is not uncommon for a senior pilot flying commercial aircraft.

The economy could weather the loss of those 66,000 jobs. With an American workforce of over 100 million employees, 66,000 people is a drop in the bucket. We will all feel sorry for the pilots for a few minutes, but then we will get over it because ticket prices will go down. The pilots will all adapt by getting jobs at Wal-Mart or Target or McDonald's. This sort of thing happens all the time in any capitalistic society.

The question is, will all the unemployed pilots be able to get jobs at Wal-Mart or Target or McDonald's? The answer to that question is where things get uncomfortable.

Robots in Retailers

In 2015, at about the same time that the airlines are laying off all of their pilots, Wal-Mart or Target or some other large retailer will be introducing a totally automated inventory management system. Every shelf will be fitted with RFID tags and bar codes, allowing a mobile pick-and-place robot to find the exact shelf location of every product in the store. Every individual product in the warehouse will also be fitted with an RFID tag and bar code, so the robot will be able to pick up and identify every product that it needs to shelve. A relatively simple computer vision system will allow the robot to stack items on the shelves. These inventory management robots will operate 24-hours-a-day shuttling merchandise from the back of the store onto the shelves as items are sold. The robots will also constantly straighten the shelves and re-shelve merchandise. All of the technology needed to do this is nearly in place today.

By 2015, every big box retailer will be using automated checkout lines. Robotic help systems will guide shoppers in the stores. The automated inventory management robots will allow the first retailer to lay off a huge percentage of its employees. Competitive pressure will force Wal-mart, K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, BJ's, Sam's Club, Toys R Us, Sears, J.C. Penny's, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, Kroger's, Winn-Dixie, Pet Depot and so on to adopt the same robotic inventory systems in their stores. The entire transition will happen in just five years or so. Any company that does not automate will be at such a pricing disadvantage that it will go out of business. Ten million unemployed workers dumped onto the job market over the course of five years will have a profound effect on the unemployment statistics in the United States.

The problem is that this same sort of thing will be happening in every sector of the economy at a very rapid pace, dumping millions more unemployed workers onto the job market at the same time. See Robotic Nation for details.