Slashdot Mirror
5 White Collar Jobs Robots Already Have Taken
bizwriter writes University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47 percent of total U.S. jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033. That now includes occupations once thought safe from automation, AI, and robotics. Such positions as journalists, lawyers, doctors, marketers, and financial analysts are already being invaded by our robot overlords. From the article: "Some experts say not to worry because technology has always created new jobs while eliminating old ones, displacing but not replacing workers. But lately, as technology has become more sophisticated, the drumbeat of worry has intensified. 'What's different now?' asked Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at market research firm Outsell. 'The pace of technology advancements plus the big data phenomenon lead to a whole new level of machines to perform higher level cognitive tasks.' Translated: the old formula of creating more demanding jobs that need advanced training may no longer hold true. The number of people needed to oversee the machines, and to create them, is limited. Where do the many whose occupations have become obsolete go?"
clickbait article is clickbait
Financial and Sports Reporters
Online Marketers
Anesthesiologists, Surgeons, and Diagnosticians
E-Discovery Lawyers and Law Firm Associates
Financial Analysts and Advisors
I think Season 1 Ep 3 of Black Mirror just about nailed the future of the global workforce smack on the head. The rarified elite will control 99.999% of the global wealth while the rest are used as a captive consumer base, forced to watch ads and rewarded in credits for providing energy to help provide "green energy" by toiling on exercise bikes all day and/or by being used as entertainment in reality tv or porn.
That's mainly why ISIS exists. Bunch of people with no jobs.
Financial and sports reporters - the examples are the types of stores that are full of facts and figures, and are better done by computers anyway. It's kind of like bemoaning computers taking away the human job of compiling telephone directories (remember those?). Not a lot of human touch needed there.
Online marketers - Really? Creating email subject lines? And I've stumbled onto those sites. They are only effective because they make it hard to click on anything OTHER than an ad. Not exactly stealing a desirable human job there.
E-discovery - i.e., Google for lawyers. And Wikipedia says they have 53K employees. Wait, I thought we were eliminating human jobs!
Financial advisers - good riddance. Most of them are just trying to get you to go for the investment with the highest commission, not the best for you. Computers will follow suit, but whatever.
Here's one they missed: radio DJs. You've heard these stations that are totally automated. No human touch, dry as a bone. The ones you want to listen to are still emceed by humans.
What's different now? A lack of imagination!
Just as buggy whip makers couldn't possibly think of the millions of jobs automobiles would create, tomorrows technology will destroy current jobs while creating new ones. We will probably see autonomous cars rip the rug out from taxis and uber services, and will also see many new autonomous car based services pop up. I expect as car ownership is reduced, many garages become workshops, studios, and project labs for lots of fun new ideas that will create many new jobs that computers couldn't possible come up with, and perhaps people will have to build new robots to make new things.
Should be fun!
But lately, as technology has become more sophisticated, the drumbeat of worry has intensified.
It hasn't increased. Probably the high-point for this worry was the Luddites. And another high-point was in the 50s, when computers were first coming out, and movies played on that worry. When was the last movie where a job-taking-computer was the main villain?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
1. High volume data reporting such as sports and fiance where people are just looking for numbers. I mean... who cares? These are things that previously were often just charts. And really, which would you rather read? A chart that gives you the numbers of some natural language engine that turns the numbers into a bogus article? Give me the chart any day. And that never took much labor.
2. Scanning emails to to do targeted advertising. How is this a job anyone got taken away from them? For one thing, if something is going to read my emails, I'd prefer it be a robot rather then a human being. And beyond that, this is a job that wouldn't even exist without robots. After all, who is going to pay someone to go through all those emails to look for key words and then match those key words to targeted advertising? Dumb.
3. I'm not terribly worried about a supped up version of WebMD. But if that system can actually do that job... then that is amazing and a blessing. Look at all the people struggling with paying for medical bills. National budgets are getting strained with the expense. And then so many communities don't have first class hospitals to get access to such people even if they can pay/they're subsidized. This technology if it works will save lives and lower medical costs which is something we sorely need. The first two things listed were bullshit and the third if viable is fucking amazing.
4. Discovery in law suits is possibly the most boring thing anyone in law can ever be assigned to do. Whenever this happens they always put the most junior interns they can get their hands on to do it. It is a bullshit job that no one wants to do and a horrible waste of a law degree. Also... this could make court costs more reasonable... which is also good.
5. The problem with human financial analysts is that they get emotional. They get scared or they get greedy or they get lazy or they drawn into some fad. What is more, they're expensive again if you want a good one and that's just out of reach of most people. AI financial assistants will have their own problems. But something is better then nothing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
His business card said "Office of the Public Defender."
I'm sure many devs have had jobs where they're working on some sort of killer automation. Something that makes them look out into a sea of office workers thinking "by end of year, we'll only need half of you..."
They're jobs that technology has long since claimed, yet they still exist. Nothing's perfect. It'll be a slow road.
Skynet is hiring engineers!
I won't be happy until none of us 'have a job'. Jobs suck! I want the damn machine to cook and clean and wipe my butt, and form a warm, moist cocoon around my.... Okay, that's enough... Back to your cell, punk!
Create automation that replaces politicians, CEOs, and economists and watch the fixes fly!
We just need a set of context sensitive executive decision makers (deluxe model uses an actual radiation source for random numbers.). They can have options like 'steal from social programs', 'tax the poor', 'Give banks a handout', 'blame the other party', etc. CEO versions can include 'give employees food stamp applications', 'layoff', 'plunder the pension fund', etc.
There are huge problems in the world that desperately need solving. But most of the people who need those problems solved are too poor to pay for a solution. And most of the solutions depend on a major increase in knowledge (e.g. scientific research) which is very cumbersome to fund via a free market. The government can create artificial monopolies (patents and copyrights) but, once the government is meddling in the free market so arbitrarily, it's not clear that's any better than just having the government fund the work directly. Scientific progress doesn't just magically appear for free out of thin air. It needs to be paid for one way or another.
In one possible future, it would be easy to find meaningful work solving the world's big problems but most jobs would be in the public sector - and taxes, on the rich at least, would be very high. In another possible future, the big problems wouldn't get solved and most people would be reduced to performing frivolous little chores for a small number of extremely powerful rich families in order to avoid starvation - but rich families would live out fabulous lives of idle luxury.
When will we finally build a society where the wealth produced by robots is more or less equally distributed among all people? Human replacement should be greeted with cheers rather than be something to worry about.
Google "define computer"
Answer: "[...] a person who makes calculations, especially with a calculating machine."
That role was the first to go - the others are just side-effects.
There will always be a market for bikini mud wrestling, get out those thongs dudes...
If we can AI politicians so that washington runs properly, and for the people for a change, I'm sure that create an unlimited supply of jobs.
I love killing jobs. The first time was designing 9 axis CNC controllers in 1978. Cocaine, pot, Detroit, Chicago and polyester shirts, Debauchery. Times were good, The Z80 and amd2900 stomped the tera.
Journalism has already been crowdsourced. All you have to do is look at the number of blog postings and discussions at any website that references "news" articles (including Slashdot) to realize that.
Newspapers are already being forced into a co-operative model to apply the resources needed to do true investigative reporting, like the most recent HSBC scandal. None of them have enough staff left on the payroll to do it by themselves.
Software and IT have much the same problem, though the "crowd" is a bunch of cheap overseas labourers instead of the general public. But the end result is the same -- highly paid skilled professionals replaced by cheap mob mentality grunts working on the "million monkeys" theory of producing quality.
The legal profession has been impacted big time just by the ability to do keyword searches of article databases instead of paying junior staff to do the legwork of researching relevant cases for the lawyers in a firm. Most new lawyers are finding it hard as hell to get into any real firms to gain experience as a result, much less ever be offered a partnership.
Note that not one of these changes required anything as earth-shattering as "AI" -- just automation and distribution of common tasks.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What never fails to concern people is that 100 years ago, 80% of humans worked in agriculture and earned $5k per year, and today we are replacing jobs that pay $100K per year at X rate with technology (or imports etc.)... Can we deduce from those two facts that the future is in jeopardy? "Poverty used to be in decline, but now wealth is in decline!" That's the argumentum in terrorem or "doom and gloom" fallacy.
The people quoted in TFA are having trouble speculating what the new jobs will be. Recall the hysteria in the 1970s and 80s about the number of USA jobs moving to Japan, or the 90s-2000s jobs moving to China. 80,000 jobs doing X were lost was a constant headline over 4-5 decades. Yet my state has
If the 80,000 jobs lost to Y during X period was an accurate predictor of concern we'd have reached 90% unemployment a decade ago. Technology both replaces and creates jobs, like App Developer or 3D computer animation artist, or smartphone assembler, that no one imagined. True, most of the new jobs being created today are being created in emerging markets, but as China develops more cell phone assembly jobs, USA sells China more Buicks.
If someone with a time machine had gone back to meet me 30 years ago and shown me film of me using a cell phone to browse the internet and speak to my kid in Europe, and told me the technology cost me $30K per year, I'd have believed that. And today that "imagined value" means I'm living like a person making $29k more than I actually am.
The BLS has not been the greatest predictor of which jobs will be in demand, but has predicted employment markets in aggregate pretty well. "The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicted a 15% increase in the employment for all animal care and service workers between 2012 and 2022; however, employment of zookeepers was predicted to grow more slowly than other positions (www.bls.gov)." http://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest...
Gently reply
Gay stupid article by an idiot luddite who is just jealous that he majored in shitty journalism studies instead of being smart enough to get a real degree in something that actually matters in life like mathematics. There seem to be a lot of these lately, probably because sales are down for their crappy, boring, preachy magazines and newspapers, and they whine and blame others in childish fits of moral outrage. Meanwhile they are too stupid to see the real reason sales are down is because nobody likes to read childish fits of moral outrage.
"Where do the many whose occupations have become obsolete go?" Nowhere. It's that simple. It should be painfully clear to all but the simplest intellects that we have a huge population surplus. The rational thing to do is encourage the excess people to stop reproducing so that we can use some of the meager resources at our disposal to support them for what's left of their lives. We need to cull the population drastically over the next 2 generations, provided the idiots don't make other little idiots who will believe the world owes them a living. The simple fact is: if you're not a One Percenter by now, you will never become one. You're in the surplus population and should understand that no, this world does not need you anymore, and that there is no other one. Accept extinction.
Back in the 1960's, there was a TV show called "The 21st Century", which was narrated by Walter Cronkite. He kept going on about how much more leisure time people would have in the 21st century. What the futurists of the day forgot to consider was that if you put everyone out of a job, nobody is going to have money to spend, and thus there would be no market to sell to.
Frankly I'm not worried, anyone who can scrape together the metals to build a metalicarap will be able to manufacture pretty much anything. I think we'll see a massive reaping of the super rich and a redistribution of wealth amongst everyone once the need for Labor is completely eliminated.
Easier to lead them into the furnaces.
Lets face it - the drive to optimize and automate things cannot be stopped and its natural consequence is that most jobs will be optimized out of existence making it the first time in history possible to live off of the rent. This does not have to happen today but some day in the future the automation may come to a stable point.
The question is then who possess it all. The other is what will happen with out-optimized people. I think great SF works show it all - intelligent ones in societies that share and redistribute may have a life of art and science leaving the lower classes to indulging in chemical and technological stimulants.
Possibly you can also have a situation where you just leave the majority to itself. If they have no means and cannot acquire any (no jobs) this will lead to violence.
The other interesting point is this. Automation and optimization is nice but it has a weak spot - it is optimized for a given set of parameters and given ranges. If something major happens the qualities of humans that have not been put into automated infrastructure may be needed to survive changed environment. At the end it is as it always was - something big happens (Toba blows up or 1% goes for soylent green solution etc) and the survivors have earth for themselves.
The professional class has been immune from this for too long, demanding everyone else get a PhD.
Time for a rethink.
FTW
This will lead to higher unemployment. What to do with the huge number of people in this case in 2033?
Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out.
...the industrial revolution!
To the streets, my son, to the streets. There they exchange their services and products with other people not able to buy the essential services performed by our new overlords while waiting for another raid by the automatic police force for illegal exchange of services. It's time for a revolution!
What's different now is that we have an out of control redistribution machine running full speed all across the planet Earth, working hard to stuff the pockets of people who say "no" (bureaucrats) and most especially the cronies of the central banks (ie Wall Street, finance industry, etc). If people were A. allowed to do what they wanted, and were prosecuted or sued for actual HARM rather than prevented from doing things because someone thought they MIGHT harm someone (not to mention forced to hire people to deal with regulators)and B. were allowed to keep the fruits of their labors (government used to spend 2-5% of GDP, not it spends well over 40%, even China only spends 20% of GDP), you can bet a multitude of new and interesting opportunities would arise very, very quickly.
We see things like Uber coming about, and even persisting in the face of government bans. Imagine if all the things that are easy for governments to stop suddenly could move forward. Flying cars in five years for starters (the FAA has been the one standing in their way for 30+ years, shooting down EVERY SINGLE PROPOSAL). Who knows what other wonders await?
When will you evil republicans learn? They're only taking jobs that white collar workers won't do. You're just racist against robots.
*Meekly* I have a modest proposal.
Repetitive and easily managed process are ripe for replacement, just ask telephone operators, and higher paid positions are reduced in favor of less costly staff trained in specific functions, just as MD's about NPs and Nurse Anesthetists. As machines get better at collecting, analyzing and recognizing patterns people who do that will be replaced by machines, just as the spreadsheet replaced begins of low level accountants crunching numbers by hand. The ability to use that information for decisions making will mean higher level cognitive skills will still be in demand, as will the ability to recognize and react in unforeseen circumstances. Flying FedEx drones from a room in Memphis is a great idea, but what happens when you lose the radio link or your instrument data goes haywire and you need to figure to what is going on; while controlling a hundred other plans as well? Planes already have gone to 2 person crews since automation has eliminated the need for the flight engineer and many planes can pretty much fly from takeoff to touchdown without a pilot's intervention but the pilots are there not for the routine but for the unexpected. It's the ability to apply a solution in an unforeseen situation or green insights that will continue to be valuable; sure a machine can predict the success of a lawsuit, or the probability of a winning hand, but a good lawyer, like a good poker player, can find a way to turn a loser into a winner and that's what people pay for.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Even if you accept the premise that new jobs will be created by the new technologies, there are still risks.
1) The new more-demanding jobs will be beyond the intelligence and abilities of a larger and larger portion of the population. What happens when the computers and robots are smarter than the average bear/human?
2) Even if a person is capable of performing one of these more-demanding jobs, the new jobs will demand that they spend more and more years in training and learning. Without a significant increase in human life-span there will be a point of diminishing returns where a live person spends so much time learning and training that they don't nave enough time to actually work and earn money after that.
3) If the technologies keep accelerating, it's very likely that the machines will become flexible enough and smart enough that they can learn any task faster than a human. Even some "creative" tasks are really just applications of logic and reason (science). At that point the alternatives are between a) a massive redistribution of wealth so that all people share in the bounty created by the robots, b) we ban artificial intelligence or c) if there is any spark of human creativity that is beyond the capabilities of robots and computers, that will be the last refuge of human labor..
But even if we all become painters and singers and mimes, poverty will still be real: 90% of everything created by people is crap. So the creative society is still likely to require a massive redistribution of wealth.
I suppose another alternative is a massive depopulation of the human species on earth. That can easily be accomplished if the struggle for wealth distribution devolves into war.
We are the 198 proof..
Robots can do the most worthless employees jobs far more efficiently and save corporations a lot more money.
Start with the executives. Hell roombas can make better decisions than these guys.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First they replaced the assembly line workers. I didn't say anything because I wasn't an assembly line worker
Then they replaced the cashiers and greeters. I didn't say anything because I wasn't a cashier or greeter.
Then they replaced the teachers. I didn't say anything because I wasn't a teacher.
Then they replaced the drivers, I didn't say anything because I wasn't a driver.
Then they replaced middle management. I didn't say anything because I wasn't middle management.
Then they replaced the teachers. I didn't say anything because I wasn't a teacher.
When they replaced the programmers, there wasn't anyone to say anything to.
Oh, that 47% figure. Now throw in the jobs off-shored or H1B'd. What's a former airline pilot or surgeon going to do? Work at Tim Horton's, when all the staff have been replaced by droids?
On the "good" side, pollution and congestion should go down, since there won't be anyone driving to and from work or school.
Remember those "Freedom 55" commercials? A few years ago, they interviewed the guy who did them, and he said there's no way he'd be financially able to retire at 55 with today's life expectancies. But in the future, most people will be doing make-work programs that could be automated more efficiently, such as mowing lawns or picking up roadside trash, just to give them something to do so that they feel they've "earned" their dole.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Landfills, just like any other obsolete and unwanted assets.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
According to a recent Oxford study, half of our jobs can be automated over the next couple decades: http://artificial-intelligence... Maybe the solution should be to reduce our working ours to share the remaining jobs and have more leisure time: http://artificial-intelligence...
These white collar jobs aren't being replaced any more than the spreadsheet and accounting software replaced the accountant.
There is still a human at the top. A computer can't completely replace a lawyer and won't be able to for a very long time.
This is just FUD. There are jobs that are at risk and just like what has happened with farmers, ditch diggers, and accountants
one person can now handle the work of 10 (or 100) people but as long as the pace is reasonable and there is still a need for
a percentage of humans at the top then we'll be fine. Let's start worrying about it when you see a mcdonalds, a public school,
or a hospital without any employees. Granted by then it might be too late but we're not there yet. Not even close.
I used to agree with you on the basic income, but now I'm not so sure. The mistake a lot of socialists tend to make is assuming that humans will go do some thing useful with their time if they have no need to work to survive. I think this is not a valid general assumption, and if it isn't then socialism eats itself (interestingly in the same way capitalism eats itself due to greed), not due to an inability to supply the needs of the population, but due to social breakdown. These days I'm starting to think the best solution is to democratise knowledge on a grand scale. In the end the real driver of growth is not a guy who knows how to make houses but only accepts a limited few 'apprentices' into the guild that produces them. It is when the knowledge required to make houses is distributed to everyone. It is bizarre to me that while our technology economy is based on the body of knowledge put together over centuries by others that we use for free, it has now become almost dominated by this notion that if I come up with an idea nobody else in the entire world should be able to use it but me for the next twenty years. I remember reading about how Jonny Ives felt Samsung had stolen time he could have spent with his family by infringing Apple patents. I just find this level of arrogance amazing. Sure, say they 'stole' billions of dollars from you and moan about that, but trying to elevate your ability to make rounded rectangles into some kind of Herculean sacrifice that can never be sufficiently rewarded, even with $100million in your bank account, just shows the problems our economy is going to face as technology becomes more important and those who own the rights to it become more intoxicated with their own egos. The heart of the equality argument in the face of automation is the ownership of knowledge. That is where we need to be looking for solutions.
I suppose another alternative is a massive depopulation of the human species on earth. That can easily be accomplished if the struggle for wealth distribution devolves into war.
At least war is something that humans with few weapons/resources afforded to them are much more effective at than self replicating robot armies decked out with the latest military hardware.
Did you say "overlords"? You meant "protectors": https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Read the The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley to get an idea of the doom and gloom being predicted for centuries. Matt takes the view all these gloom predictors were wrong and the industrialization is an unadulterated success for humanity. He seems to think humanity consists of Europe and USA. This review sums it up nicely
The job destruction is also accompanied with wealth transfers and power transfers. Finally the job destruction finally lapped up the shores of Europe and USA by 1980s. Slowly middle class of America is waking up to what has been done to them. Their jobs are gone. The "wealth" they have as home equity is a fickle fictional paper gain. Their pensions are gone. Their investments in 401K funds is being used to transfer more power to the top 0.5% of the rich.
Typically very smart and hard working people end up in the top 2% by income and usually end up in the band 98th percentile and 99.5percentile. (To reach the top 0.5% you must have inherited wealth or take huge risks and be lucky). The wealth transfers from third world to industrialized nations had run its course, wealth transfer from the bottom 80% to top 20% has run its course. Till then these guys were very happy and egging it along. Now there is no real wealth left below 90%. The momentum of the economic policies set in motion by them is taking money from the 90 to 98 band and moving it to the top 0.5%.
If you finish college and get in to the 99% cut off entry level salary and stay exactly at the 99% cut off all through your career, it is not enough to get you into the top 1% by wealth (5 million according to IRS and 8 million according to the feds). Till about 2000s, top doctors, lawyers, accountants routinely made it to the top 1% without inheritance. Not any longer. Citation provided
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A quick read by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT lays out the situation. Technology has always eliminated some jobs while creating others. Generally, manual labor and low skill jobs where replaced, while higher skill jobs where created. The hypothesis is that somehow this time is different. Technology is now eliminating high and semi-skilled labor while not creating new jobs elsewhere.
They introduce the concept that we are entering "the second half of the chess board" The concept is based on wheat and chessboard problem" which demonstrates how poor humans are at conceptualizing exponential growth. See also Ray Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns
What I'm observing right now is that I, as a computer expert, have less work to do because most of the programming for what I did the last 15 years is done already and available for free. Example from a related field: Good fonts would cost a few hundred bucks 10 years ago. Now they are available for free with MS, Google and Co. constantly shelling out new ones. We all know what usefull server setups or IDEs used to cost and how easyly they are available for free, in abundance.
Curiously enough, I do get the impression that, although there is less work to do at times, I'm actually more important as an expert, because people don't know where to look when that one little thing needs fixing.
I expect that to be even more so in the future for jobs that will remain in our field. Guess you call that true expert jobs.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Ironic that TFA is full of typos.
Some experts say not to worry because technology has always created new jobs while eliminating old ones ones, displacing but not replacing workers.
The company claims it can weave that data into a compelling narrative that on a skill level an experienced writer can do
can automate delivery of low-level anesthesia in applications like colonoscopies at the fraction of the cost
I never could have predicted have the things that have come to play ten years ago
I come here for the love
I see in your previous job, you were a paint shaker at Home Depot?
When the cost of automating the factory jobs in places like China is less than paying humans to do it, then you will see big problems.
Right now the talk is about, "they will move the jobs to Indonesia or Africa", etc; How would the CCP deal with Billions of unemployed? How would the US govt?
The problem starts when large groups of people lose their jobs to automation and robots.
What would happen to those employed in the Ag industries if tech showed up that could pick and process produce much quicker and cheaper than people could?
What would happen to those employed in the janitorial services if tech showed up that could clean offices, hotels, etc much quicker and cheaper than people could?
What will happen to those employed in the food service occupations when tech shows up that can cook quicker, easier and cheaper than people can?
Yes, the white collar job losses to automation, robotics and software will continue and are alarming, but when large groups of lower income and less educated people become unemployed due to technology, then you will see the robotic "security forces" used in all their glory to control a dispossessed and desperate human population.
You can guarantee "think tanks" around the world are already planning for this inevitability.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
IIAAL.
What robots are doing is not replacing lawyers per-se, but making lawyers more productive (just like accountants, programmers, and a host of other white collar professions). It used to be (and still is to some extent) that in large lawsuits, you would need armies of lawyers just reviewing documents produced by the other side to see if they were relevant to the case. 90% of them would just be emails asking to go grab coffee, 9% would be tangentially related to the case, and 1% would actual be important to the case. The people who did this work were either junior associates or temporary "doc review" attorneys, who generally graduated from bottom of the barrel law schools and couldn't find more interesting work. Now, algorithms can sort out most of those irrelevant documents, leaving human attorneys to sort through only the tangentially relevant documents from the very relevant documents.
But while this allows fewer lawyers to handle more cases, it doesn't remove the fundamental need for lawyers. The only way a robot will handle substantive legal work, no matter how good the AI, will be if a robot has the same psychological impact on humans as another human. Would you rather a robot deliver the closing arguments in your murder trial or a human? Even if the words were the same, I imagine most people are far more likely to emotionally connect with a human. Even if we were to accept robot lawyers, the profession really boils down to politics and the weighing of the rights of different parties. If we ever get to the point we are comfortable with robots doing that, we will be at the point where ALL human professions are obsolete.
crap, and you'll find MORE automation in any business. What's so hard for people to figure out? A business is in business, to MAKE A PROFIT. If wages are forced up on people with little to no skills, the prices of the goods sold has to go up, in order to maintain a profitable business. If people no longer buy your products, or go to a competitor, then what good is a "living wage" going to do if the business closes its door? Low/no skilled workers are just that, they have NO SKILLS....but...but...but....I'm in my 30's/40's/50's and that is the only job I am qualified to do. That's my fault? Perhaps you need to look in the mirror, past your tattoos, piercings, forked tongue, purple hair and evaluate your life as to why, you are an adult, and have absolutely NO JOB skills. Life is hard, you make out of it what you put into it. If your youth was spent playing video games, smoking dope & partying all the time, then don't come crying to me about not having a job other than "burger flipper". The world needs ditch diggers to you know. The sooner the youth, and some adults figure out the big bad world doesn't OWE you a d*mn thing, the better off we all will be.
that I will do whatever it takes to feed my family everything will be ok. The choice is that you either make sure there is space for me and mines in this Robot future of yours. Or you order the robots to exterminate us. Because that hunger pang in my stomach will make me do reckless violent things.
Then robots will do all the work, and we are on permanent vacation. We can abandon currency, and explore strange new worlds. You can be a bum (artist / sports writer) or put on a nifty uniform and tase aliens.
UNIX has had thhis capability for ages. It's called 'yes'. The CEO enters a proposal following the comand 'yes' and hits enter.
Have gnu, will travel.
Already, we don't need lawyers anymore http://www.newser.com/story/19... Better Call Saul-bot