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Will Humanoid Robots Take All the Jobs by 2050?

Posted by michael on from the metal-man dept.

Anonymous writes "Marshall Brain (the guy who started HowStuffWorks) has published an article claiming that robots will take half the jobs in the U.S. by 2050. Some of his predictions: real computer vision systems by 2020, computers with the CPU power and memory of the human brain by 2040, completely robotic fast food restaurants in 2030 (which then unemploy 3.5 million people), etc. It's a pretty astounding article. My question: How many people on /. think he is right (or even close - let's say he's off by 10 or 20 years)? Or is he full of it?"

24 of 1,457 comments (clear)

  1. maybe 100 years.... by sweeney37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I will make this prediction: by 2008, every meal in every fast food restaurant will be ordered from a kiosk like this, or from a similar system embedded in each table.

    Yeah, I'm going to go with a no on this one. Everyone said the same thing when ATMs came around, "Oh no, they're going to replace actual tellers!" But it didn't, banks still hire quite frequently for bank tellers.

    I'm not saying these kiosks aren't going to become more prevalent, but they won't replace actual human contact. Having previously worked in many service related jobs I know that people (especially older adults) will not allow this to occur. We all need to be able to talk to an actual human every once in a while. Computers don't care if you yell. Could you imagine the amount of complaints McDonalds would get?

    With this being said, I love automated services such as "Pay-at-the-Pump" and especially self-checkout at the grocery stores. It's not that I'm some hermit who likes no human contact, but who wants to make idle chit-chat with some register jockey?

    Mike

    1. Re:maybe 100 years.... by diersing · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ATM replacing bank tellers. eTickets replacing airport personnel. Self checkout at the grocery store. Sure, it has prolly reduced the number of people working those teller/clerk positions and I'm sure on a very small scale its contributed to the unemployment rate. Aside from businesses trying to reduce costs, the government will be trying to create jobs elsewhere. If we, has a people, can automate the mundane, in theory, it would free the rest of us to create, inspire, and innovate. Ahh, its just a theory.

    2. Re:maybe 100 years.... by noah_fense · · Score: 5, Insightful


      if robots take over 50% of the jobs, the robot industry will need millions of workers who performed these simple to complex tasks to program/design/manufacture their replacements, thus creating a multibillion dollar robot industry which will create millions of new jobs (maybe not 50% as much).

      -n

    3. Re:maybe 100 years.... by Nutcase · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why not just make robots that work in the robot factory?

    4. Re:maybe 100 years.... by cavemanf16 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Just because the technology is there does not mean people will want to use it.

      More importantly, no matter how much technology we have, we'll always find ways to keep ourselves more occupied with other matters through the USE of the technologies we create. The Matrix is certainly a very fun, very cool movie, but the distopian future of self-aware machines displacing humanity just isn't reality. Yes, I would rather have a robot properly preparing my cheap Wendy's cheeseburger over waiting 5 minutes for some high school kid to get done spitting on it, rubbing it on the floor, and then carelessly handing it to me through the drive-through window. However, when that kid gets displaced by some robot, I'm sure he'll find some other means to buy himself that rice-burner.

      Look at history people. The only time a civilization or humanity has been "displaced" has been because the people self-destructed, not because of their inventions, mechanical creations, or otherwise. Now ruining a natural habitat, or creating "gods" to sacrifice themselves to, yes, that has a negative impact, but those aren't technological innovations.

    5. Re:maybe 100 years.... by diersing · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Where did you work in high school?

      My mundane position was at an amusement park. I'm sure the adults that came through looked down on me because I wasn't from an affluent area or had secured my education at an important university. But that mundane job allowed me to attend a state school. No one flipping burgers or scanning your Fruit Loops is thinkging they've reached their potential or go home at night thinking "I've finally arrived"

      I'm not saying we don't need the menial (sp?) or support jobs. We do and we will, they will just change from filling your Biggie Drink (c) to patting your pockets looking for metal items while entering the public library. Shift Happens.

    6. Re:maybe 100 years.... by Kintanon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fuck the whole *open up new jobs* thing. I want to be able to buy my own humanoid robot and then have it go to work for me while I get paid. THAT is labor saving right there. Make ownership of robots past a certain complexity level illegal for businesses, reserve the right for individuals. Then you can save up for your very own robot that will go to work for you, freeing up valuable loafing around time.

      Kintanon

      --
      Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
    7. Re:maybe 100 years.... by TrippTDF · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only time a civilization or humanity has been "displaced" has been because the people self-destructed, not because of their inventions, mechanical creations, or otherwise.

      Why can't technology be the mechanism for the self-destruction?

    8. Re:maybe 100 years.... by Frequanaut · · Score: 5, Funny


      Good god man, what are you saying? I for one welcome our new robot masters with open arms.

    9. Re:maybe 100 years.... by cluckshot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Will the "supply siders" never give up. We now see that we have passed the "Curve" on almost all industries where the number of persons required is dropping. The supposed robot maker jobs here is already automated. The electronics Industry is so automated that the total world supply of CPU's is made by less than a thousand persons and that number drops every day!

      We may or may not reach the points in the time suggested but the real issue is what are we going to do with the people and how are we going to allocate the resources.

      I moved to Alabama in 1963. There were over a million jobs in the state picking cotton. With the advent of cotton pickers, this number dropped to an insignificant sum of a two or three thousand. There were a significant number of new jobs which arose that replaced some of the lost jobs but even as early as the 1960's and 1970's this was a real problem.

      The failed concept here is that every person is somehow able to adapt "Instantly" to the new reality. People who are young do so fairly well so long as they are pretty bright and industrious. Many others particularly as they grow older have increasing difficulty adapting. Careers which once lasted a lifetime now last but a year or two. The Economic Concepts of the "Free Traders" and such simply do not factore in any concept of time or adaptablity factors.

      The solution was to build lots of "Projects" where these people live and their progeny to this day. They fill every town in the state. Their cost is dramatically higher than paying these people to work would be. It is on the order of 4 to 5 times as expensive as a fairly decent job!

      We need to quit arguing about the supposed supply of new jobs which about 5 years ago the curve of job loss as a net crossed the curve of new jobs that can be supplied. Now even if we recover economically the jobs don't return.

      Those who point to jobs going off shore as a job increase don't notice that world wide there is a massive glut of labor. The issue here is pretty deep because if we continue with the stupid "Supply Side" economic ideals as a religious belief that it is, we will do very great damage before we face reality and fix things as they need to be.

      I am not suggesting that there are not many routes to solution here, but the confidence that somehow people will need more and more labor as we automate is the triumph of belief over reality

      --
      Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
  2. Brave New World by mandalayx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The arrival of humanoid robots should be a cause for celebration. With the robots doing most of the work, it should be possible for everyone to go on perpetual vacation. Instead, robots will displace millions of employees, leaving them unable to find work and therefore destitute. I believe that it is time to start rethinking our economy and understanding how we will allow people to live their lives in a robotic nation.

    Does anyone else see Brave New World here? Artificial industries created in allowing humans to be free of worry and work...merely players in a game whose goal is to increase consumption.

    Worrying stuff. Now where's my soma..

  3. This article is dumb by mjmalone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This article is absolutely rediculous. How do you make a connection between a kiosk where you can order food at McDonalds and robots taking over every job in the United States? First of all, I don't think a fast food resteraunt could be completely automated. Machines are good at things like accounting, but when it comes to human interaction there is a lot of room for improvement.

    Autonomous humanoid robots will take disruption to a whole new level. Once fully-autonomous, general-purpose humanoid robots are as easy to buy as an automobile, most people in the economy will not be able to make the labor = money trade anymore. They will have no way to earn money, and that means they end up homeless and on welfare.

     This is horseshit. First of all it is impossible, if most people in the economy were on welfare they would be no economy. Where would these companies get money to build and maintain the robots? I don't disagree that there will probably be a lot of automated systems in the near future, but this article is just stupid.

    --
    Visualize the world of wine
  4. Predict the future by looking at the past by pez · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There are two ways to look at this issue; one
    is to make forward-looking predictions which are
    justified with little more than hand-waiving
    arguments, and the other to look at past
    history and see what type of hand-waiving
    arguments of days gone by have actually come
    to fruition.

    The author touches on the issue, but IMO is
    comparing apples to oranges in this quote:

    Imagine this. Imagine that you could
    travel back in time to the year 1900. Imagine
    that you stand on a soap box on a city street
    corner in 1900 and you say to the gathering
    crowd, "By 1955, people will be flying at
    supersonic speeds in sleek aircraft and
    traveling coast to coast in just a few
    hours." In 1900, it would have been insane to
    suggest that. In 1900, airplanes did not even
    exist. Orville and Wilbur did not make the
    first flight until 1903. The Model T Ford did
    not appear until 1909.


    Rather than talk about airplanes, let's talk
    about robotics since that's the subject of the
    article. Off the top of my head, the
    industries in which robots have dominated
    more than any other are in chip fabs and
    automobile assembly lines, and this has been
    the case for over a decade. Are we seeing
    the type of doomsday scenario for the
    workforce that this article implies?
  5. 3.5 million by roalt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Some of his predictions: (...) (which then unemploy 3.5 million people), etc.

    In other news, the estimate number of people in development, production and support of intelligent robots in the year 2030 is ... 3.5 millon people.

  6. Yes, but even worse... by Shoten · · Score: 5, Funny

    By 2060, half of THOSE jobs will be outsourced to robots in India!

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  7. What bank do you use? by dachshund · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Everyone said the same thing when ATMs came around, "Oh no, they're going to replace actual tellers!" But it didn't, banks still hire quite frequently for bank tellers.

    What bank do you use? Many of the banks in my area have reduced teller hours to the point where most working people can't use them. Some have instituted fees for seeing an actual person.

    Others (my neighborhood Washington Mutual) have so completely automated the process of withdrawals and deposits with special kiosks, that actual human presence in a bank is much lower than it ever was when I was growing up. You go to one kiosk to prepare your deposit, and another to withdraw cash. The actual teller transaction, if necessary at all, is minimized. And tellers double as customer-service people, opening new accounts and the like-- one of the few remaining tasks that isn't machine automatable.

    Then there are online banks like ETrade, which seem to do ok with no human contact at all.

    So no, humans haven't been written out of the equation. But their numbers have been substantially reduced, and the process is a long ways from complete.

  8. Re:What About Instict? by ray-auch · · Score: 5, Informative

    In a fly-by-wire aircraft (which is a lot of recent large passenger planes) you already bet it on the computational prowess of machine. It might be (is) several machines with different software comparing/contrasting/voting and monitoring each other, but machine it is - and if it decides the engines won't throttle up, then they won't, no matter how hard the pilot pushes the stick.

  9. This article is common sense by dachshund · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How do you make a connection between a kiosk where you can order food at McDonalds and robots taking over every job in the United States?

    The question is, how do you not make this connection?

    Ask yourself the following questions:

    1) Is there a compelling reason to believe that computer/robot technology won't reach the point where most basic service jobs can be (almost) entirely automated? Think food service, janitorial, banking, etc.

    2) Is there a compelling reason to believe that this technology will remain too costly or inconvenient for employers to adopt it?

    3) If (1) and (2), is there some compelling reason why employers will choose not to adopt a cheaper, more convenient technology for these purposes, in order to increase their profits?

    If you can't answer with confidence to any of these questions, then it's probably not a matter of whether robot technology will absorb these jobs, but of when it will happen. The 50 year prediction may be off by quite a lot. But over some reasonable time span (less than a couple of centuries, barring global disaster), the technology will be available and-- assuming our economic system remains similar to what we have today-- it will be in use.

  10. interacting with robots by anonymous+loser · · Score: 5, Funny
    People don't like interacting with robots

    Yeah, no kidding. Robots are always boozing, carousing, gambling, and saying things like "bite my shiny metal ass". Who needs that kind of grief?

  11. This is already happening... by bc90021 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Computers are getting into everything, and robots build most things now:


    Most people who have commented are saying "I'd never trust my life to a robotically controlled plane" and "Oh, no way will I want to interact with a robot". But what you're missing is that this already happens.

    As for interacting with robots, all Al Gore jokes aside, it won't be that difficult. People interact with computers all day (for Gen Y it is as natural as breathing). Automated voicemail was mentioned, but while it may be frustrating, when well designed it is more efficient and cheaper (hence why businesses use it!)

    And that brings up the other point: most posters have ignored the economic aspect of it. That same factor that is driving jobs to India is the one that will make it so that Marshall Brain is completely correct. Companies need to save money wherever possible, and replacing labourers with robots will be a very big way to do that.
    --
    libertarianswag.com
    1. Re:This is already happening... by RedK · · Score: 5, Funny

      Computers control the actual braking on your ABS brakes.
      Man, those now out of work ABS brake workers must be pretty pissed off. What job can a 3 inch tall guy get ?

      --
      "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
      Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
  12. My job!? by Cornflake917 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What??? I can't get an IT job because they are all going to India?

    Oh well, I guess I'll just go flip burgers.

    WHAT!!??? Robots have taken THOSE jobs!?
    DAMNIT!!!

    --
    Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
  13. Not a zero-sum world by b-baggins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The author's premise is that an economy is a zero-sum game. If a robot takes a job, that means a human must lose a job.It's the same idea that many liberal politicians have. If one man gets rich, it's because another man has become poor.

    The truth is, economies are not zero-sum. If robots do become a large factor in our economy, then people will move to other avenues to provide for themselves. Heck, the economy may even shift again. We used to be a manufacturing based economy. Now we are more a serviced based economy. Who knows, in a 100 years, if robots can do it all, our economies may focus around land (where we can live with all our robot servants), art, and knowledge and other things that are uniquely human.

    --
    You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
  14. Breaking news from BCE 7000 by Catskul · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not so live from the time warped news room:

    This just in, Breaking news from BCE 7000 ... An anonymous "Curch of technology" terrorest has elimnated half the jobs of rock wielding nail pounders by inventing the hammer. Experts predict that this will spell the end of the world. Spokesman for the ROWNPAW (ROck Wielding Nail Pounders Association of the World) had this to say: "The ROWNPAW will not stand for this Coperate greed coming out of the Curch of technology, We plan to strike to prevent adoptation of this job killing device. Its unfair, and this 'hammer' has no regard for ROWNPAW workers who work their butt off to earn their keep" The church of Technology has denied being greedy and one church spokesman had this to say: " Its just seemed like a good idea... thats all".

    Breaking news from CE (AD) 1455 ... Germany lost 75% percent of its manuscript workforce today as inventor Johann Gutenberg unvailed his massive project to print bibles using moveable text. An Industry leader of the MIGOG (Manuscript Industry Group Of the Germany) issued a statement: "These printing presses are merely tools of copyright pirates. All these people want to do is illeagally print Bibles and sell them on the black market. We plan to subpenea the Reformation for the names off all offenders." The industry leader also made mention of the pending patent lawsuit from a Chinese group with a substancial patent portfolio, supposedly including a patent for a movable type machine. Nastrodamas has issued a cryptic statement presumeably that implies that the end of the world is near.

    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni