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45% of U.S. Jobs Vulnerable To Automation
An anonymous reader writes "A new report out of Oxford has found that the next 20 years will see 45% of America's workforce replaced by computerized automation. 'The authors believe this takeover will happen in two stages. First, computers will start replacing people in especially vulnerable fields like transportation/logistics, production labor, and administrative support. Jobs in services, sales, and construction may also be lost in this first stage. Then, the rate of replacement will slow down due to bottlenecks in harder-to-automate fields such engineering. This "technological plateau" will be followed by a second wave of computerization, dependent upon the development of good artificial intelligence. This could next put jobs in management, science and engineering, and the arts at risk.' 45% is a big number. Politicians have been yelling themselves hoarse over the jobs issue in this country for the past few years, and the current situation isn't anywhere near as bad. At what point will we start seeing legislation forbidding the automation of certain industries?"
The problem right now is that the current political mantra thinks that jobs are the most important thing, and if you don't have a job you're worthless and a problem that must be taken care of. It will be a painful period for jobless and workers alike until this discrepancy between current reality and ancient politics is gone.
c++;
What would people do without jobs?
A small percentage would improve themselves by learning new things exploring new concepts, etc. The majority however would do nothing but become restless, and that would lead slowly to fighting each other. Humans need to do something that keeps there minds and bodies occupied.
However robots can't do engineering. Robots can't think. AI is a pipe dream for at least the next century. We don't really understand how our own minds work. Computers are binary. Humans brains are at least trinary. Until a computer can do maybe then true ai is impossible.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
As soon as they automate politics. That's when politicians will ban it.
I absolutely hate how people talk about the negatives of automation like somehow things are better when humans did all the menial tasks. I remember an old Russian video where a worker was winding a ball of yarn by hand. That is degrading. What is even more degrading is paying a bunch of foreign people a lot less to do manual (and meaningless) tasks to make cheap products and then ship them across the world. Even further degrading is the layers of bullshit we have decided to surround ourselves with in other professions that waste the hours in our days.
The problem is not that 'there will be fewer jobs.' The problem is not that 'there are not enough resources.' The problem is that the jobs and the resources are all allocated wrong. We could (at least in America) have 20-30 hour work weeks, plenty of family time, decent pay, and a low unemployment rate.. if a certain select few did not make ALL the money and take control of ALL the resources.
I am an automation programmer. I work to automate any task I can possibly automate. I do not feel bad about it. Any automation I create has to be maintained.
As far as legislation forbidding the automation of certain industries.. Since the US Government fucks up everything it touches, I believe it will work to create laws to forbid the jobs that should be automated and laws to automate the jobs that should be manual. For example, the NSA said it will fire 90% of sysadmins and replace them with automation. Anyone in IT knows that idea is 100% stupid. Another example is the rise of red light cameras everywhere. As subjective as it is to enforce the law, our wonderful government has decided to make it legal for robots to do that for us. And, since the US military is having trouble finding new hires that have zero morality, they are working to automate drone warfare also. Great..
So, anyway, what I mean to say is.. Automation itself is not bad. It's the way we're using it that will be bad. Instead of using it to free ourselves, we are using it to enslave ourselves.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
The thing is, automation makes peoples' lives easier. It means that less work has to be performed to get the same results.
A sensible response to the promise of automation is not to be a luddite and ban the practice, but to ensure the benefits of automation are widely-distributed. In short, the answer is to prevent the concentration of wealth (a problem we need to focus on right now whether or not the fears of automation are realized).
Yes, because all of the retired people in the world are always so busy murdering each other.
It's truly tragic.
The economy is doing fine. GNP has been growing at a 2% rate for the past 5 years.
The problem is that this doesn't require the entire working age population to have jobs, only 60% or so.
In 10 years it may be 50%.
The result of this process is continual concentration of wealth. Recent published statistics show 95% of the economic growth in the past 3 year was garnered by the top 1% of the population.
The idea that everyone needs to have a full time job is just not practical any more. The concentration of wealth at the top we have is a threat to democracy.
It seems to me we are at a real watershed.
Humans brains are at least trinary.
Citation please, and exactly how would "not being trinary" prevent effective AI?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
How will I pay for my material things? Why would someone invest money into building and operate a factory of robots only to give away free snorkles and swimfins?
You imply some kind of utopia on the horizon, but I fail to see a path leading there.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
However robots can't do engineering. Robots can't think.
s/robots/most humans/
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
there's no shortage of stuff out there to engage in - from the social, family and exploratory (travel the world, anyone?) to the intellectual (learning, research and the arts).
Call me elitist, but there are just too many people who are so dull and stupid as to only be suitable for bottom rung activities. Without a job, they're good for nothing more than 2 minutes of "fame" on an episode of Cops.
There's enough oil money in some gulf states that no citizen really needs to do much useful work...
And if you look at those countries, the mass of chronically-unemployed citizens who want jobs but feel that menial labor is beneath their dignity is causing serious social problems.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
What would people do without jobs?
A small percentage would improve themselves by learning new things exploring new concepts, etc. The majority however would do nothing but become restless, and that would lead slowly to fighting each other. Humans need to do something that keeps there minds and bodies occupied.
Yes, because all of the retired people in the world are always so busy murdering each other.
Exactly. Or, for even a better example... before the feminist movement put most women in the workforce in the past 30-40 years, a lot of women tended to not "have jobs." Individual salaries were often high enough for families to be supported by one (typically male) income.
I don't recall reports of hoards of homemaker housewives fighting in the streets. Does anyone?
Women had more time for their families, more time for their homes, etc. I recall visiting my grandparents when I was a kid: the house was always immaculately kept, food was always prepared from scratch every day, etc.
I'm not saying everyone would enjoy obsessing over such things today: many people today view cooking and cleaning as chores, rather than a point of pride. To each his/her own. Other women I knew in previous generations just tended to watch soap operas all day, particularly once the kids were grown.
There are plenty of things one can find to fill the hours of the day, if you have a good attitude about it. If you don't like working around your home, go read some books. Visit a museum. Take up art or music. Join a social club. Surf the internet, or even watch TV.
The problem isn't that humans can't fill that time, or even don't have useful activities that could fill that time. Rather, the past half-century or so has trained us to think of most of the common everyday activities of previous generations as "chores," rather than simply "everyday life."
I'd love to be able to spend more time at home experimenting with cooking and baking, doing yardwork and gardening around the house, growing my own food and preserving/fermenting/canning it, doing various upkeep and projects around the house (painting, repointing the brickwork, random home maintenance), perhaps even building furniture or doing some of my own remodeling. There are some "chores" I don't particularly look forward to (like washing dishes), but many others are incredibly satisfying when you get to say, "I made this" or "I did that."
I think back to most of the people in my grandparents' generation that I knew, and they took a similar pride in what they did around their homes. Today, you use the microwave instead of the stove, get the crappy store-bought pastry instead of baking your own with real ingredients, buy the frozen dinner and the cans instead of cooking fresh food and canning your own produce. You just buy the leaf blower instead of the rake, the rototiller instead of the spade, the weed wacker instead of the hand edger. And then after you finish all your yardwork in 1/4 of the time, you spend 45 minutes working out or jogging or whatever, when you could have already had your work-out doing the yardwork in the fresh air.
I feel a sense of accomplishment when I do my own tasks for my own family or around my own home. Lots of people in previous generations did too. In fact, go back a century or a little more, and most people were farmers: their only "job" was growing food to keep themselves and their own families alive. They didn't need external "work" to make their lives interesting enough so that they weren't sitting around idle and getting into random brawls.
I'm NOT a luddite or hopeless nostalgic person arguing for a return to an agrarian world or something, where lifespans were a lot shorter, life was a lot harder, and crime rates were admittedly higher.
I AM saying that there are a lot of everyday things people could take pleasure in doing, while simultaneously making their lives better (e.g., cooking your
No, it wouldn't. We have too many people in power who can only feel rich if others cannot. They are like a raccoon 'trapped' because they can't bring themselves to let go of the shiney so their paw can slide out of the hole.
We need the maturity as a society to tell the greediest among us that their behavior is no longer acceptable. Then we can make some magic happen.
Over the last 10,000 years, in all but a few hundred have people been living under feudalism, where big shots become ever richer and more powerful while everybody else suffers.
Current trends are leading to a return to this "normal" state, and not to any kind of utopia.
The answers to all questions you ask, including the last one, lie in history. Read it as I suggested. History shows very well that no belief and no system is monolithic and eternal.
On the other hand, human nature is largely just that. As a result, while levels of technology, and cultural changes may change the expression of the human nature, the base human nature remains the same and it will likely be satisfied in the same way. Before they gave plebs just enough to eat reasonably well, be able to go to the gladiator arena and brothel every once in a while. If you wanted more - you had to learn a trade. When this balance was broken, the riots occurred that almost broke Rome. We still inherit a lot of things from those times, including the concept of power of "veto" - latin for "I forbid". This was the only word that plebeian representative was allowed to say in Roman Senate. Because the higher classes understood the need for curbs on their legislative powers after bloody riots when reins of power were tightened too much.
We're leaning towards the same end today in the Western countries. Some allow for more socialist system, some for less. But in general, the direction is the same. Masses are given food, shelter and base level entertainment even without working. Those who implement less of this typically pay with far more violence on the streets, just as it happened in Rome as pendulum of patricians vs plebeians balance swung back and forth.
As for your last real question (before the inane and self evident "but current short term rhetoric doesn't allow for this"), elite will always have too much power. There is rarely any social cohesion based on equality in real sense rather then for the show in advanced societies - that is a thing of basic ones. As society advances, throughout humans history a class-based society of some sort is produced. This would suggest that it's a human nature to assign such classes and that social cohesion doesn't require equality in the long run, just reasonable levels of both predictability and most importantly hope for social mobility. In Rome, even a slave could, through mastery of notable trade or possessing another valuable skill, free themselves from slavery and even end up as patrons of their town if they became wealthy. Similar path has also been taken in the Western societies to varying degrees.
Make it more economically feasible to just quit and a lot of the compliance stuff can just go away. Most of it exists because people can be trapped in a job.
Dig deeper into the union rules. For every arcane rule there is an equal and opposite attempt by management to exploit a loophole that necessitated the rule.