Drones likely to transform, not replace, jobs: tech expert

In this Feb. 13, 2014 file photo, a drone is demonstrated in Brigham City, Utah. (AP / Rick Bowmer)

Drones are planting trees, helping paramedics in crises and herding cattle, all while the world’s biggest retailers are racing to develop air traffic control systems that will satisfy regulators.

There is no doubt we’re on the cusp of the “next industrial revolution” of drones and robots, says Toronto-based technology expert Avery Swartz. It’s unclear exactly what the impact will be on jobs, she says, although many economists and analysts predict drones will transform jobs, rather than replace them outright.

“Think about this as not being a complete threat to your livelihood,” Swartz told CTV’s Your Morning Friday.

For instance, Seattle-based DroneSeed is working with forestry companies to plant trees in deforested areas of the Pacific northwest. There are more than 300 million acres of deforestation in U.S. and, at current planting costs, it would cost about US $100 billion to replant them.

A good human tree planter – a common summer job for many young Canadians – can plant about two acres or 800 trees in a day. But that one person handling 15 drones can plant 800 seeds an hour.

There is a project underway in Atlantic Canada with more than 120 paramedics and training paramedics using drones to survey simulated mass casualty situations and to deploy human help faster and more efficiently.

Other research is underway in Canada to use drones to herd cows and to improve the yield of potato crops in New Brunswick.

“There a lot of really interesting, useful applications for drones.”

But of course, the largest commercial push for drones is to overcome the high cost and inefficiency of the so-called “last mile” of delivery to a consumer’s door. That’s especially applicable in Canada, with a highly distributed population and huge swaths of remote areas, says Swartz.

China’s biggest retailer, JD.com, has announced plans to develop drones that can carry up to a ton of payload. The company says the drones will deliver consumer goods to remote areas and farm produce to cities. Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon and Walmart are all invested in drone development, too.

“Big players all playing in this space,” Swartz said.

What is dragging behind is the development of air traffic control systems that will safely manage the drones and prevent collisions with buildings, trees, other drones and aircraft. Right now, aviation authorities only allow commercial drone flights for experimental reasons.

Swartz says the major players are working on using sophisticated software to guide drones and developing artificial intelligence to teach drones to change course mid-flight depending on conditions.

Amazon, for instance, is now testing drone delivery in England and opening a research facility near Paris to develop an air traffic control system.

Government agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom also have projects underway to develop such systems and NASA is testing one in co-operation with the Federal Aviation Administration, with the goal of releasing it in 2019.