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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?"
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Financial and Sports Reporters
Online Marketers
Anesthesiologists, Surgeons, and Diagnosticians
E-Discovery Lawyers and Law Firm Associates
Financial Analysts and Advisors
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.
He IS a defender robot. He is here to protect you. Grandma is protected at the bottom of the stairs.
#DeleteChrome
Solution: use the technology of money creation to fund a basic income, so people can pursue their happiness, and explore their natural creativity and wonder.
In the 50s it was container shipping that caused all the fuss that made the papers.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Yes. but I think that the people using exercise bikes to generate power is just a placeholder for 'something else' that the author hasn't quite figured out yet (kinda like the human batteries from The Matrix)
I tend to look to the past for what we will find in the future and this immediately brought to mind 'A Modest Proposal' with its suggestion for the proper use of 'excess human population'. Just to save you from doing any research, it is the same that was found in Soylent Green (but much better written, Johnathan Swift possessed wit)
Of course, Spock's Brain comes to mind as our robotic overlords become to advanced to be bothered with tending to the 'plumbing' and outsource the more mundane work to our feeble human brains
The expositions of the future used to envision a world where automation resulted in a life of ease for us mere humans, this could still be the case if the concentration of wealth to the upper echelons can be avoided
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Automation changes the source of production from workers to machines. And that separates the source of production from the source of consumption.
To put it simply, robots produce wealth but does not consume it. Humans consume wealth, but (in this possible future) can no longer produce it. Robots have owners of course, but even if you ignore what happens to the majority of people, a few extremely wealthy people can not possibly make up for the consumption shortfall. Ten-thousand people with 10k each vastly outconsume (by necessity) a single person worth 100M.
So, if the entities making wealth and those using wealth become separate, you need a way to transfer wealth from one to the other. If not, you will see a slow-moving economic collapse, as lack of demand and cost-cutting automation drive each other down.
A basic income, generated from a tax on production (transaction tax, energy tax, direct tax on machinery) is one way, and has the benefit of being simple, straightforward and having low administrative overhead.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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.
Apparently the first time they didn't do a very good job of replacing the teachers...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?