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?"

Comments

My father once said...

[liamoohay]

My father, an early pioneer of automated teaching (and a teacher himself) once told me that computers would soon replace teachers and, he added, not long after that they would replace the students too.

Re:My father once said...

[RespekMyAthorati]

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.

AI and robotics and jobs

[fyngyrz]

Yep. When AI arrives, very few jobs (other than things like ambassador to AI or positions in Luddite cults) are likely to require a human. Whether AI will see fit to participate in our job market is not intuitively obvious, though. Still, with AI in place, lower level robotics should be quite sophisticated.

I've always thought that the current presumption that a job is required and inherently a good thing was an artifact of scarcity of labor. Remove the latter, and the former may well radically change.

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[pipatron]

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.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[peragrin]

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.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[DarkTempes]

Yes, because all of the retired people in the world are always so busy murdering each other.

It's truly tragic.

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[the eric conspiracy]

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.

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[Psiren]

Sounds like you're describing Iain M. Banks' post-scarcity Culture (I'm sure there are other sci-fi examples). That can't really happen until we have an abundance of energy and the ability to manipulate matter to create any material goods we may require. I don't see that happening for another millennia or so, assuming we last that long.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[TheSpoom]

Humans brains are at least trinary.

Citation please, and exactly how would "not being trinary" prevent effective AI?

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[OrangeTide]

However robots can't do engineering. Robots can't think.

s/robots/most humans/

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[houghi]

What would people do without jobs?

Instead of having one person doing a 75 hour job and 2 people doing nothing, you could have 3 people doing 25 hour jobs. That way they still contribute AND have lots of time with friends and family and do whatever they desire.

In an ideal world, the way to pay this is by giving the money that is saved by giving the job to automation to the people who were doing the job in the first place.

However in the real world, we will have one person doing a 75 hour job and have no life and 2 people have nothing and ALSO have no life, just so the person owning it all get a little bit richer.

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[Nutria]

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.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[sustik]

Most people around me suffer from not having enough time to spend it with their family or on vacation or persuing arts or be politically active etc. The latter is actually a serious problem. There are people who tell me they do not vote because they do not know who to vote for because they have no time to keep up with politics. And when they say that they do not mean the 1 minute sound bites from TV etc. but instead reading research papers and in-depth analysis; maybe a whole book about issues like education, poverty, competition, issues of governence or philoshophy.

Instead people spend time commuting to a job and overall more than *half* of their time awake time on a job. If you are an artist or researcher this may well be what you want to do, but I doubt this is the case for most.

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[Luckyo]

This has been done before to an extent allowed by the system, for example in Ancient Rome. In Rome, slaves did most of the work, while citizenry were mostly guaranteed livelyhood. Technology levels however were not high enough to support the system, and Rome eventually collapsed after hundreds of years of being one of the most defining and powerful societies in the world.

In fact, Ancient Rome offers a very good view of how we'll likely develop. Simply replace "slave" with "automation and go read something short like this:
http://www.mariamilani.com/ancient_rome/ancient_roman_jobs.htm

Or actually study the subject in depth for more understanding on what happens to society when a large amount of people is left without work prospects (as plebeians did in Rome after the rise of slave-based economy). What happened is exactly what is described above - a guarantee for basic needs in life and entertainment to keep the masses pleased.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[93 Escort Wagon]

They just want to see their grandkids

Oh, if you actually KNOW this already... then why haven't you called in WEEKS, mister too busy to talk to your own grandfather?!

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[TheRaven64]

Sounds like the Brave New World solution is required. Stop demonising drugs, and make freely available drugs that give a sense of euphoria and lethargy. If people don't want to do anything with their lives other than take drugs, then let them get on with it in a non-destructive (to people other than themselves) way and remove themselves painlessly from the gene pool.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[AthanasiusKircher]

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

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[sjames]

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.

Re: AI and robotics and jobs

[AthanasiusKircher]

Instead of having one person doing a 75 hour job and 2 people doing nothing, you could have 3 people doing 25 hour jobs. That way they still contribute AND have lots of time with friends and family and do whatever they desire.

Exactly. According to productivity stats, we should already be in a place where people are working 25-hour weeks or less, rather than 40-hour weeks, assuming constant production over the past half-century or so. Instead, though worker productivity keeps rising like crazy, wages are static or rise very slowly. People actually end up working longer hours to keep up with increased social pressures to have more consumer products that are now "essential" (supposedly) for everyday life.

However in the real world, we will have one person doing a 75 hour job and have no life and 2 people have nothing and ALSO have no life, just so the person owning it all get a little bit richer.

Yes, the competitive business work ethic ends up working against everyone. We reward the mid-level executive who's willing to give up his family and work 80 hours every week to get ahead. The top-level executives in companies end up being filled with people who think that the only employees with any worth are people with that sort of dedication.

Once the mid-level guy gets to be a real executive, he might be able to afford a little more flexibility in his time. But everyone below him obviously isn't worth as much and should be willing to work 80 hours (or at least produce enough in a shorter time to qualify for working "that hard").

It ends up in a spiral where everyone feels like you can't get ahead unless you're willing to sacrifice the rest of your life to your job -- all because of a small percentage of competitive alpha males who see the only possible achievement in status, power, and money.

But this is cultural. Workers in the U.S., for example, have to deal with such expectations at most companies. There's never any expectation that increased productivity might lead to work-weeks with fewer than 40 hours or more vacation time or whatever. And even if it were offered, many workers would simply prefer a raise.

In many countries in Europe, though, taking a vacation is not viewed as an unmanly waste of time when you should be working harder and getting ahead at your job. Take a look around Germany or Italy or France in late July and early August, for example. Almost everyone seems to be on a holiday. It's not uncommon for many people to take an entire month off in the summer. Total vacation time each year is often double or triple what a normal worker has in the U.S.

And, of course, there are lots of studies that show this is actually a good thing for workers. Vacations tend to give a psychological boost that can actually increase worker productivity. Shorten the arbitrary 40-hour work-week a little, and you might even see a productivity gain.

In sum -- if we get rid of the alpha-male you're-not-committed-unless-you-never-see-your-family craziness, and actually started decreasing expected hours per week at work when productivity increased, we'd probably end up with happier people and just as much stuff. But executives and investors wouldn't get quite as rich, so it probably won't happen anytime soon....

Re:AI and robotics and jobs

[Luckyo]

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.

First place to an AI replacement

[MickyTheIdiot]

I think this isn't actually a troll... but a REAL posit...

The first jobs to go when there are jobs automatable by real AI should be legislatures.

Let a real intelegence that can't be biased by the current bullshit lobbying system write laws balanced for the common good of EVERYONE and reduce legislatures to one or two people per state as that can vote up or down.

Obviously lots of holes in that half baked idea, but our major societal problem in the U.S. is a lack of real leadership. If you make the leadership job simpler and not affected by the plauge of the lobbyist then maybe we can have a society that works for everyone and not just the select few that can PAY for their free speech.

The obvious answer is...

[jacobsm]

As soon as they automate politics. That's when politicians will ban it.

Using it wrong

[brxndxn]

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.

Banning automation is bad

[Chalnoth]

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).

technocracy - the end of a monetary system?

[OrangeTide]

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.

Re:technocracy - the end of a monetary system?

[modmans2ndcoming]

The future is Communism! You let AI run the economy and the government commissions the investment in the building of the production plants, then people just get their stuff from the corner store using their pre-determined rations based on the AI computations.

you righties think being "slaves" to "socialists" like Obama is bad...wait until the first real AI production plant reduces labor costs to nothing and we see a run-away train toward this future where we are dependent on automated production to survive. you either follow the law or die of starvation because you have forgotten how to take care of yourself.

Re:Utopians and economics

[sjames]

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.