With AI Getting Better at Cognitive Abilities, Humans Will Have Even Fewer Jobs (koreaherald.com)

Third field by irrational_design · 2016-05-02 04:53 · Score: 4, Funny

What about acting as organic batteries for the machines?

Re:Third field by Joe_Dragon · 2016-05-02 05:03 · Score: 1

skynet will just nuke us all long before that. Unless joshua does it first.
Re:Third field by npslider · 2016-05-02 05:07 · Score: 1

What a revolting thought...
Re:Third field by Szeraax · 2016-05-02 05:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

As I understand it, this was not originally written into the matrix and was tacked on by some PHB. I have read previously that they needed the human brain power in order to create and manage the entire world. (too much processing to be done or somesuch). Obviously not a big deal in life, but just an alternative thought.
Re:Third field by Maxo-Texas · 2016-05-02 05:23 · Score: 1

That wasn't real anyway. Just another layer of the matrix.
And Agent Smith was ... the one... who was born in the matrix and whose code was reinserted into the matrix.

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She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Re:Third field by TiggertheMad · 2016-05-02 05:59 · Score: 1

I was going to suggest that the third category of work is actually smashing robots that have taken over the first two categories, but I suppose that falls into the 'post battery stage' of development.

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HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Re:Third field by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 06:25 · Score: 1

Maybe it was too much like "Spock's Brain" and they were afraid of a lawsuit from the Roddenberry estate
But, it was covered in their future-history perspective The Animatrix
Re:Third field by Guy+Harris · 2016-05-02 07:41 · Score: 2

Any AI worth its salt would realize that's not realistic.
On the other hand, any AI worth its salt would not have rejected that script merely because of its scientific absurdity.
A good AI might have tossed out the sequels, however.
Re:Third field by WarJolt · 2016-05-02 07:53 · Score: 1

The only reason we'd all be turned into batteries is if some AI developer wrote some buggy code in which case skynet would probably just end up nuking itself by accident.
Re:Third field by ShanghaiBill · 2016-05-02 09:01 · Score: 1

Even if biological systems worked as batteries (they don't), why wouldn't The Matrix use something more docile than humans, like cows?

If AI can be taught how to read basic emotions by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 04:54 · Score: 1

And also programmed to not be giant assholes, that will put them ahead of 98% of my co-workers. Especially the fucker who keeps stealing my queso dip from the fridge. I welcome our new emotionally-sensitive-AI-overlords with open arms.

Re:If AI can be taught how to read basic emotions by thinkwaitfast · 2016-05-02 05:56 · Score: 1

If 98% of your coworkers are giant assholes, then maybe it's you.
Re:If AI can be taught how to read basic emotions by fizzup · 2016-05-02 06:20 · Score: 1

Yup. If you meet an asshole, don't let it bother you - it's only one asshole. If everybody you meet is an asshole, it's still only one asshole.
Re:If AI can be taught how to read basic emotions by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 06:26 · Score: 1

Let's see ... my last three support tickets were:
1. Shipping Manager who griped to my boss that a recent update broke his printer. Actual problem? He wasn't selecting the printer he wanted when the print dialog came up.
2. Branch Supervisor sent out snotty email (with my boss and about 12 other people CC'ed) about the disruption that IT was causing with their unannounced changed (we don't do those). Actual problem? She had forgotten her password to the scheduling application and needed a reset.
3. "Controller" posted another whiny rant ticket about how unfair it was that he didn't have comprehensive administrator rights to all computers in his department. Actual problem? He wanted to install a registry cleaner someone from church had shown him, because it would "make things faster". Once again directed to the 'Acceptable Use' policy and put my head down to cry.
I'm probably an asshole too, I'll grant that, but I can at least wipe my own ass without telling 10 people whose fault my shit is. Unless you count bitching as an AC on Slashdot.
Re:If AI can be taught how to read basic emotions by ShanghaiBill · 2016-05-02 09:08 · Score: 1

I'm probably an asshole too, I'll grant that, but I can at least wipe my own ass without telling 10 people whose fault my shit is.
Maybe you should try to be more approachable and proactively helpful, and then your co-workers would not try to work around you and complain to your boss.
Re: If AI can be taught how to read basic emotions by Cederic · 2016-05-03 05:34 · Score: 1

Although on this occasion, calling ignorant users assholes because they merely lack the understanding, experience or potentially wit to work effectively with computers does demonstrate a lack of empathy, the addition of which would indeed be a tremendous boon in a service based role.
So I wouldn't call this victim blaming, I'd suggest it's a fair and reasonable piece of constructive feedback. Some of those users may indeed be arseholes but that doesn't mean others get off the hook for it.

Still a job for us by Qzukk · 2016-05-02 04:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Since the computer cannot feel, we humans will still have a job as test dummies to be subjected to whatever the AI comes up with in order to record whether we feel it to be pleasant or not.

Now, please look into the camera and experience Musical Composition #0x382F493 for 48.732 minutes.

--
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.

Re:Still a job for us by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 06:17 · Score: 1

1) Who says we won't make computers that feel? Either feeling is a phenomenon fo data processing (ie something the brain does) or it is not. If it is, then we can make silicon do the same thing. If it is not, then we have no reason to assume that computers can't already feel.
2) Who says computers need to feel in order to treat us well? Our incentive is to make them the perfect slave race...and so far that is exactly what we are doing. People seem to think that "intelligence" automatically includes "self-interest," which is ridiculous.
Re:Still a job for us by parkinglot777 · 2016-05-02 07:35 · Score: 1

What do you mean "feel".
I believe in this case, it means toward mental (e.g. emotion, feeling, etc.) rather than physical (e.g. touch). Can you really describe how you "exactly feel" when someone punch you? If you can, I guess you can program a machine to understand it too.
Re:Still a job for us by invid · 2016-05-02 08:52 · Score: 1

While it is obvious that the brain has the ability to achieve a physical state that experiences information, it is not clear that such a state can be replicated by silicon. The ability to experience information as sensation may require a specific physical configuration and may not simply come into being from a sufficiently complex information system.

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The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Re:Still a job for us by reboot246 · 2016-05-02 10:22 · Score: 1

Oh, great! Just what we need, emotional and neurotic machines.

The big hurdle that computers have to jump is creativity. Yes, I know that some have "created" art and music already, but it really sucks. For some art you just need to have emotions, something computers and machines may or may not have in the future.
Re:Still a job for us by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 10:56 · Score: 1

The ability to make statements like "I feel sad" or "that hurts!" with perfect conviction is easily replicated in silicon.
Is the ability to claim to feel sufficient proof that one actually does feel? If so, then computers can do it. If not, then I challenge you to provide any test that could demonstrate a separate organism's ability to feel. Without such a test, we can only assume that everything that exists also feels. Including rocks.
Re:Still a job for us by invid · 2016-05-03 00:45 · Score: 1

The ability to make statements like "I feel sad" or "that hurts!" with perfect conviction is easily replicated in silicon.
Is the ability to claim to feel sufficient proof that one actually does feel? If so, then computers can do it. If not, then I challenge you to provide any test that could demonstrate a separate organism's ability to feel. Without such a test, we can only assume that everything that exists also feels. Including rocks.
It is possible that every "thing" in the universe is able to experience its own state. The problem then becomes what is a "thing"? Does every atom feel its own atom state? Does every molecule experience its own molecule state? Assuming all matter experiences its information, I think we can assume that brains are able to take chunks of experiencing matter and connect them together to create models of the universe. It then creates a model of the animal that houses the brain and stimulates it according to sensory input. But for this to work the various pieces of experiencing matter need to be connected into a unity. If this is true then simply having a computer say "that hurts" would not be equivalent to a human being saying "that hurts." It would, however, allow for a complex simulation within a computer to experience pain, as long as the complex simulation was designed to have the all the parts of the experiencing simulation connected simultaneously, to address the binding problem.

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The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.

Re:Well, I guess that's it. by Austerity+Empowers · 2016-05-02 04:56 · Score: 1

It's time, the sky is falling.

Replaced us? When? by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2016-05-02 04:58 · Score: 1

>> When machines replaced us in physical abilities, we moved on to jobs that require cognitive abilities.

Tell that to my plumber. My mechanic. The mason who just fixed my chimneys. The guy who mopped out the urinals this morning. Etc.

Many already are by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 04:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

"AI could drive humans out of the job market and make many humans completely useless" - no shit, MANY humans are already completely useless. They exist solely to drive like shit every morning, work at some non-productive ego-fueled job with a corporate leech, and then drive like rocket-powered-flaming-bullshit to get home and wreck their kids' brains with their "parenting". AI can't possibly make these people worse.

Re:Many already are by magarity · 2016-05-02 05:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm just glad you're not bitter or anything.
Re:Many already are by sinij · 2016-05-02 05:27 · Score: 1

I'm just glad you're not bitter or anything.
AI would still be better than you at reading his emotional state.

Not this again! by jbmartin6 · 2016-05-02 05:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Just because I can't think of something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I, for one, look forward to the incredible prosperity and freedom possible by using these technologies. And we will think of plenty of new things for these "useless" humans to do.

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This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.

Re:Not this again! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 05:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

And we will think of plenty of new things for these "useless" humans to do.
There already is.
The trouble is that their activities aren't considered valuable under our economic system.
We live in a consumer based economic system and unless you can find a fit in this system, you're a misfit. You're working in a dead end, part time, low paying service job - even though you might be a brilliant artist and would be great after you die.
Although we value ancient novelists and writers and artists, when they were alive, most were dirt poor - yet their works go for millions after they are dead.
The engineer who is designing that latest media consumption device gets paid quite well and the entrepreneur who figures out how to distract us from our innate human creativity to spend on social media is rewarded with almost instant billions.
I see a future where AI does our work, an extremely small minority of engineers designing it, and the rest of us being distracted by social media and other garbage while we get our base pay.
Having a purpose is necessary for humanity and right now, work is it.
As usual, society and economic systems aren't changing fast enough in response to technology.
Re:Not this again! by MickyTheIdiot · 2016-05-02 05:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

I don't. Not in American society, anyway.
We've increased our productivity levels exponentially since the 1970s, but very little of that benefit went to people below the top 10%. The common person is working more hours and being more productive than ever before, and even so he/she is more of a wage slave than any time in modern era.
Unless some of the basic tenets of US society change the benefits of even MORE per-person productivity are just going to keep accruing at the top. That sounds hopeless, but it is possible. Our corporate worshipping culture as we know it today only started to form in the mid-1970s.
Re:Not this again! by thinkwaitfast · 2016-05-02 06:14 · Score: 1

very little of that ...
It's there if you want it. If you don't, then don't complain.
Re:Not this again! by Archangel+Michael · 2016-05-02 07:00 · Score: 1

little of that benefit went to people below the top 10%.
Yeah, tell them. We got no benefits for any of it. So many products are better, stronger, faster, cheaper, safer, but we didn't benefit at all! /sarcasm
The problem is that you have FAILED to see the benefits everyone is reaping, because they benefit everyone equally. My guess, is that you have NO real skill or talent and expect to rewarded for participating, having put in no effort to break out of mediocrity. So, instead you drink the Kool-Aide of Bernie and whine about how all of this is unfair.
As I told my kids as they were growing up, "who told you life was fair?"

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:Not this again! by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 07:45 · Score: 1

Great post.
Spot on!

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:Not this again! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 08:12 · Score: 1

Well, life is going to show you exactly how fair it is in the next few years after the Western economy undergoes a final, total collapse.
It's amazing what you project onto Sanders' supporters. You can't possibly imagine that somebody who has more skill and talent than you probably do would want a UBI or free college or whatnot. You just want to scream TANSTAAFL! while people starve around you, because that makes you feel smug. You can't imagine that an educated person who sacrificed everything to get where he is would support *gasp* socialism. You are so lost in your Randian narrative it's sad. There is nothing I can say that will snap you out of it. There are no more graphs to put in front of you since you've failed to grasp every prior attempt to demonstrate that we are headed for huge problems.
But Sanders doesn't have a chance in hell at this point. Personally, I will probably vote for Trump. I suppose I at least need to make a small gesture so that when that final, total collapse is at our doorstep, at least I can say, "Hey, I tried."
The thing about people is they don't generally sit around smoking pot all day. I used to use that line rhetorically here in support of a UBI, but today I use that line with a different meaning. Read it again. People don't generally sit around smoking pot all day, especially when they don't have any pot to smoke because they can't even afford a basic lunch.
I hope you're far away from major cities when the riots start. 2019 is the convenient figure that comes to mind, but it might be some time into Clinton's 2nd term. It's certain that the stock market will crash like it's never crashed before in 2017, maybe 2019 (which would push the riots back until 2021 or 2022 or so). Suddenly those iBlings that you claim as benefits will just be a hollow reminder of how we all sold ourselves down the river.
The problem is that you can't eat an iBling. When people fall off the unemployment check and still have nowhere to go to work, then it should be obvious where we went wrong. Or not. I suppose nothing will convince you. The social security office will be swamped by the volume of people attempting to claim some kind of disability. My job will still be here, but I can only feed so many mouths before it breaks my bank account.
Yeah, in retrospect, do people who decided to buy an iBling instead of a freezer full of beef deserve to starve? Well, I guess that's the question in front of us. They have iBlings. The day will arrive when they can no longer afford a lunch. They'll need to sell their iBling. Who will be buying and at what price when people need a lunch and not an iBling? It'll delay things, but not for long.
Get ready, my friend. It's coming. People who are smarter than you have figured out ways to prevent this from happening, but it wasn't compatible with your TANSTAAFL! Randian narrative, so you arrogantly figured that you could measure your own smarts by your bank account and completely overlook all the advantages you may have had and all the times you may have just gotten lucky. In your arrogance, you decided to judge all those whose bank accounts weren't as good as yours as being without any "real" skill or talent while likewise overlooking all the advantages they maybe didn't have or the times they just got unlucky.
And yeah, sometimes people do monumentally stupid things like buying an iBling instead of a freezer full of beef because they don't see what I've seen is coming. Maybe they don't understand why their job will evaporate as TPP/TTIP/TISA starts coming into full effect. I hope you decided to get the freezer full of beef instead of the iBling. Are you prepared for what might happen when a starving mob learns that you've got a freezer full of beef that can feed them now, tomorrow be damned?
I'm not really trying to construct an apology for the masses. Personally, I think the masses are pretty fucking disgusting. I'm merely observing reality as it tends to play out and sens
Re:Not this again! by seven+of+five · 2016-05-02 09:35 · Score: 1

Our corporate worshipping culture as we know it today only started to form in the mid-1970s.

Uh, no. Big corp's were well-entrenched in the 40s and before.
Re:Not this again! by Archangel+Michael · 2016-05-02 09:48 · Score: 1

I am only going to address one statement, because it actually shows your level of ... ignorance.

It's amazing what you project onto Sanders' supporters. You can't possibly imagine that somebody who has more skill and talent than you probably do would want a UBI or free college or whatnot.
Here's what I know. Things of value are Rarely free. Most things of value are that way, not because they are easy, but rather because they are not.
Free college provides paper certifications that cheapen the value of hard earned education. Free college gets you programs like "Gender equity studies", useless degrees that nobody in their right mind can get any sort of job. These are the people with Master Degrees and work at Starbucks wondering why they can't get a job.
And you're idea that "Free college" is the answer to all the ills of our world is simply wrong on another level. It isn't. We have MILLIONS of people graduating with useless degrees already, and you solution is to have more of them, expecting different results.
And lets be honest, "free" doesn't mean "free". Someone pays for that college, through higher taxes, higher tuition (supply/demand) and worse, lower quality education. I happen to work in Education, and I see the problems caused by "free education for all" and "Eduction is a right" logic. It causes the best and brightest of our kids to be ignored and forgotten, while catering (giving the most resources) to the least educate-able of us.
It is this "fairness" that the left is trying to equal out of the unfairness of life (some people are smarter than others, some work harder than others, some are luckier than others) that ultimately results in an equally unfair (perhaps more so) response, in taking from those that are smarter, work harder and are lucky to give to those that don't actually deserve anything.

Somebody is always stealing from somebody. Maybe I'm stealing from my employer and I'm not worth what I negotiated for, or maybe my employer is stealing from me and I'm worth more to them than I negotiated for.
If both sides negotiated and agreed upon, nobody is stealing from anyone. But then again, that is the basis for your entire viewpoint, that someone is screwing someone in every deal. I feel really sorry that you have the view in life that competition for scarce resources is a bad thing, because someone gets "stolen from".

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:Not this again! by Archangel+Michael · 2016-05-02 09:51 · Score: 1

3) Tyranny is also social contract. "Taken care of" in your world is the old Liberty for security trade. I don't want to be taken care of, I want to be free. Sorry, but any social contract that takes liberty under the guise of security is selling something I don't want any of.

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:Not this again! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 11:09 · Score: 1

There's going to be some change in the near future, and it's going to be demographic. One generation down the line the Earth will see the human population reduced by 99%. Guess which 1% will be left.
I can't. And neither can you. Revolutions, besides being very messy, are also very unpredictable. Lots of people will die. Many of them will be the 99%. At least a few of the 1% will also end up dying too. No one is immune. If you really think that you can predict ahead of time who will be the winners and who will be the losers in a revolution then you are not living in reality as the rest of us understand it. I hope this clarifies things for you.
Re:Not this again! by david_thornley · 2016-05-03 05:21 · Score: 1

You're confusing "free college" with "college degrees for all". They're two separate things.
Free college means that, if you get into college and stay there, you don't pay tuition and fees (and perhaps get other support). It doesn't mean unqualified people can get in, or that it's easy to get a degree. It does mean that you aren't barred from college because you can't afford it, which makes things much more fair. We've had free K-12 education in the US for a long, long time, and it has generally worked fairly well.
College degrees for all means letting in the unqualified and giving some sort of degree to people who are neither qualified nor willing to put in any work to learn. It makes education worse and doesn't recognize that some of us actually put in some effort to learn things.
Things are valuable partly because they aren't easy to get, true, but if we want to make a diploma worthwhile we need to make sure people work to get their degrees. It doesn't matter nearly as much how we make people pay for college. I'd be happy with some way to make it easy for poor people to get through college, provided they are qualified and put in the work.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Not this again! by david_thornley · 2016-05-03 05:30 · Score: 1

How about a social contract like criminal law? The government will try to protect you from violence, and will try to punish people who attack you. That's security. You give up the right to use violence, except in very limited circumstances. That's giving up liberty. It's significant, because sometimes violence is the answer.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Replace the HR Dept? by BoRegardless · 2016-05-02 05:02 · Score: 1

Could likely do better than they do now.

Re:Replace the HR Dept? by npslider · 2016-05-02 05:09 · Score: 1

An army of robotic Catberts, oh boy...
When they decide to "terminate" your position, the last thing you will hear will be the word 'baby".

This could be a good thing by npslider · 2016-05-02 05:03 · Score: 1

Hopefully the first jobs to be replaced will be the out-sourced technical support positions.

The robots can read a script far more quickly and efficiently. For a short time this may be a good thing. Lets just hope they keep the Indian accent, it just isn't the same quality experience without it.

*sigh* by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 05:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yet another fear-inducing, hysteria-producing Slashdot article about how AIs/robots/H1Bs/women will replace our jobs. I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:*sigh* by sjames · 2016-05-02 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'll believe it when I see it.
But nobody will care because you'll just be a crazy homeless guy.
Re:*sigh* by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 05:20 · Score: 2

I'll believe it when I see it.
I imagine the same was said about:
Steam Locomotives
Photography
Electric Lights
Telephones
Human Flight
Anti-Biotics
Television
Nuclear Power/Weapons
The Transistor
Personal Computers
The Internet
etc;

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:*sigh* by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 05:39 · Score: 1

I imagine the same was said about:
Most of the technologies you have listed have lasted for a hundred years before being fundamentally altered or transformed by newer technologies. Nuclear/power/weapons, transistor, personal computers, and the Internet are less than 70 years old. But these articles that talk about jobs being replaced by AIs and Robots are misleading as those technologies are years away from being day-to-day reality. If an AI does replace my job, I'll be ready to change to a different job. Something most people aren't prepared to do because they don't take future trends into consideration.
Re:*sigh* by Tablizer · 2016-05-02 06:24 · Score: 2

hysteria-producing Slashdot article about how AIs/robots/H1Bs/women will replace our jobs. I'll believe it when I see it.
Hey, you just described one of my top p0rn fantasies!
Seriously, though, the middle class has been stagnant while the 1% growing in proportion approximately starting around the time offshoring and automation really took off. Coincidence?

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:*sigh* by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 06:28 · Score: 1

I believe it because I already see it. Unemployment up all over the place.
One-guy with gas-powered blower does the work of 100 broom sweepers. Yes, these things happen. But I don't see an AI or robot replacing the landscaping guy anytime soon.
Re:*sigh* by Marginal+Coward · 2016-05-02 06:29 · Score: 1

But these articles that talk about jobs being replaced by AIs and Robots are misleading as those technologies are years away from being day-to-day reality. If an AI does replace my job, I'll be ready to change to a different job.
I see it as more of a gradual thing. My favorite example of this involves 'trash collectors' - which used to be the archetypal job that humans that would forever provide employment for the unskilled. Not so: many trash trucks today are manned by a single skilled driver who operates a (fairly dumb) trash-truck robot that picks up the (now standardized) trash cans. So, instead have having one skilled driver and one or two unskilled trash guys, we now have just the skilled driver. And it isn't hard to foresee even the driver being replaced in the next decade.
Re:*sigh* by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 06:35 · Score: 1

Seriously, though, the middle class has been stagnant while the 1% growing in proportion approximately starting around the time offshoring and automation really took off. Coincidence?
Federal trade policies over the last 40+ years has contributed to decrease of the middle class and the increase of the 1%. If the US had a US-first policy like Germany has a German-first policy, the offshoring wouldn't haven't happened to eliminate middle-class jobs and destroy manufacturing capacity. Automation will still happen to shift workers to other jobs.
Re:*sigh* by Austerity+Empowers · 2016-05-02 06:45 · Score: 1

I believe it because I already see it. Unemployment up all over the place.
Correlation is not causation. You could be seeing this because, for example, employers are trying to get more utilization out of salaried employees by pushing them to work more than 40 hours a week. In fact I don't think I've worked under 60 in an average week in my entire career. Most of that does not require an engineering degree, it's the kind of mundane corporate bureaucracy that any high school grad could pull off.
Re:*sigh* by fbobraga · 2016-05-02 06:47 · Score: 1

"Migrants are all rapists who rape our women!"
Re:*sigh* by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 07:04 · Score: 1

In fact I don't think I've worked under 60 in an average week in my entire career.
As an IT support contract worker, I haven't been allowed to work more than 40 hours per week for the last 12+ years. Government and Fortune 500 companies don't want to pay overtime.
Re:*sigh* by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 07:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

I have a good friend who is a teamster.
He drives the same basic locations everyday, because he knows the routes.
Even he knows "the gig is up" once self driving tech becomes commonplace.

Once something like that is outsourced to a semi-automated process(pun intended) many people will be put out of work.
No, it won't happen overnight(and I think people have this image of it doing that) but once it gets going, whether it is in fast food, driving, taxis, farm labor, aircraft pilots, sports writers, para-legals, financial advisors, etc, etc, there will no turning back. It will be a generation(25 years) for this to happen once it really gets going.

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:*sigh* by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 09:00 · Score: 1

Then you are not salaried, but an hourly employee
When I worked for a video game company for six years, I was working 60 to 80 hours per week and collecting overtime pay as an hourly employee. After I got into IT support 12+ years ago, I wasn't allowed to work overtime even though I was an hourly employee. Go figure.
Re:*sigh* by Austerity+Empowers · 2016-05-02 14:33 · Score: 1

I do not make overtime. It's free labor. The alternative is less appealing though.
My point is only that I am doing mundane work that others could do that does not tie up "valuable" and "scarce" engineering "talent", but I am doing it for free. Jobs could be created simply by keeping people in my shoes from working. We cannot do so voluntarily, for a number of reasons. I know some former employers who pushed even harder and had engineers doing project management work and fired the project managers.

Utter tripe. by jcr · 2016-05-02 05:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

At the turn of the century, 1900, 80% of Americans worked on farms. Today, it's about 4%. The mechanization of agriculture didn't result in 76% unemployment, it freed people to do other work. The availability of labor that was previously tied up in farming allowed incredible increases in productivity and our standard of living in the 20th century.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

Re:Utter tripe. by emanuele_fanton · 2016-05-02 05:12 · Score: 1

There are less need of human labor, but men doesn't have to work to live... http://www.today.it/economia/r...
Re:Utter tripe. by sjames · 2016-05-02 05:15 · Score: 2

That's because farm workers were already voluntarily moving to better paying work in factories. The mechanization of farming was in response to a shrinking labor pool at that time.
Re:Utter tripe. by sinij · 2016-05-02 05:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

The mechanization of agriculture didn't result in 76% unemployment, it freed people to do other work.
You need to study history, because not only it did result in high unemployment for a generation or so, the transition itself was much more gradual. Other work might not arrive in time to save all the displaced workers from poverty.
Re:Utter tripe. by sinij · 2016-05-02 05:21 · Score: 1

As manual farm labor was squeezed by gained efficiency of mechanized farming, the alternative employment at factories became the only alternative and resulted in a drastic loss of quality of life. These were the days of 12 hour work days, no work safety, and living in the slums and/or company towns. So the history is telling us that it won't going end well for current generation and will take many generations to find new equilibrium.
Re:Utter tripe. by nine-times · 2016-05-02 05:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is a good point, but I also wonder if there will always be another industry for workers to go into. In your example, people left the farm to work in factories. More recently, factories became more automated, and now a lot of people work in the service industry. There's been talk about automating some of that (e.g. self-driving trucks, drones for deliveries, completely automated fast-food restaurants), so people with those jobs will have to look elsewhere. Maybe there will be a new industry for them to move into, and maybe another after that....
But after a while, couldn't you eventually run out of jobs that need doing? I'm sure there will always be some jobs that need to be done, but the number of jobs that can't be done better by automated equipment might shrink quite a bit in the next few decades, or the next could of centuries. Most likely, it will hit the jobs that are mostly automated already, which tend to be low-skill and low-education, so those are the groups that will generally be hit hardest and fastest. However, I'm sure there are some high-education high-paying jobs out there that an AI could take on, and some very skilled and highly educated people may also find themselves suddenly out of a job.
So I think there's still a question: As we make jobs obsolete through technology, what do we do with the people who lose their jobs? In the short-term, I think it would make sense to focus on have cheap/free job training to allow them to move to other jobs and other industries. In the longer-term, we may want to consider how to distribute resources in a world where there are far more people than there are jobs.
Re:Utter tripe. by MickyTheIdiot · 2016-05-02 05:50 · Score: 1

So... everyone but the top 10% by meritocracy don't deserve a decent life?
First of all, the meritocracy part isn't working (at least not in the US, where leadership at all levels in the shitpile) and second of all, why doesn't everyone deserve a decent life? If society can't give the vast majority of people a decent life then it is failing.
Re:Utter tripe. by sjames · 2016-05-02 05:54 · Score: 1

Many did end up that way after the initial excitement. But even then they had better than the McJobs waiting for so many today. It will be much worse than it was for agricultural workers. Think Hooverville.
But the Capitalists had best think long and hard here, that time was the closest the U.S. ever came to a socialist revolution. Appeasement from FDR followed by WWII and then growing prosperity for the masses headed it off, but now the idiots have forgotten their lesson.
The feeding machine from Modern Times is starting to look more likely again.
Re:Utter tripe. by internerdj · 2016-05-02 06:07 · Score: 2

That isn't really a problem. Historically mass unemployment ends in revolt. The property owners will have to implement universal basic income if that is a real possibility. The real problem is if it creeps along industry by industry like it has been replacing an industry or two every decade. Then a revolt will not be likely in the property owners' lifetimes. There will be no need to implement universal basic income until it is too late for that to stem the violence, because there are other industries to find employment in.
Re:Utter tripe. by HeckRuler · 2016-05-02 06:12 · Score: 2

No, the problem is that this time it's EXACTLY THE SAME. Know your history.
"A series of 1950s essays by Henry Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins later set the academic consensus that the bulk of the population, that was at the bottom of the social ladder, suffered severe reductions in their living standards.[79]"
If you were on the top of the pile, things were great. And veeeeeerrrrry slowly things got better for the masses. In England they just waited 3 generations. In America they did it at the end of Sherman's hammer and with the rise of unions. Do you want 3 generations of unemployed? And frankly, the UBI crowd sounds a lot like the union crowd. That's a better alternative, but it's not great. I'm open to suggestions.
Hey, we're on slashdot. We've got techy degrees and pretty ok jobs (if the god-damn HW guys would get me an answer why their bloody AMCC is feeding me garbage). Take your typical person with an IQ of 100. How well do you think they'd be able to do your job? Having millions of people transition to learning to be factory workers was an ordeal with a bunch of hardships. Having billions of people transition to knowledge workers will likely also have troubles. Even now we have economist hardliners who simply think college is over-priced and over-rated. China probably has it worse. They have one generation of rice-farmers, one generation of factory workers, and they're trying to jump straight to knowledge workers.
We've been dealing with disruptive technology for a while though. Arguably, disruption is the new normal. The rate of change is what's concerning to me. When my father was learning his trade, there was no such thing as software engineers. When my son decides what he's going to do with his life, things will be different. But I doubt he's going to a manual laborer, paper-pusher, truck driver, secretary, garbage man, or a cashiere. God help him if he isn't smart. Because the sub-100 IQ crowd looks to be facing a lot of competition. But maybe I'm just a worrying father.
Re:Utter tripe. by Tablizer · 2016-05-02 06:16 · Score: 1

True, but historical patterns are not necessarily absolute "laws". A pattern that may last 200 years may not last 500, especially since the level of technology is vastly higher than in the past.
Back then, we could usually see where the new jobs were as agriculture jobs declined. I don't see the equivalent today. The number of people needed to manage the automation is a much smaller proportion than the people required without the automation.
Plus, a lot of technical management can be outsourced to low-wage countries, thanks to the internet . There are smart people in Timbuktu also.
The lower-skill end gets slapped by automation, and the higher-end skill gets slapped by offshoring. What's left in the US seems to be a bunch of marketing suits debating whether to photoshop Kardashian's ass in the next ad.
I almost wish I had the bullshitting skills to join their ranks, but I like the technical side of things too much to take the PHB pill (Dilbert + Matrix reference, for you newbies).

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:Utter tripe. by DarkOx · 2016-05-02 07:02 · Score: 2

The mechanization of farming was in response to a shrinking labor pool at that time
That simply isn't true. In the late 18th Century people like Washington and Jefferson with large plantations were experimenting with ever more mechanized mills, and mechanical threshing machines. They had SLAVE labor available to them! They were automating because even workers you did not have pay were not as economically efficient as automation promised to be, and well before a competitive labor market existed at that.

--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Re:Utter tripe. by Archangel+Michael · 2016-05-02 07:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

The way I explain it is this: Imagine how dumb the average person is, and realize that 1/2 the people aren't actually that smart.
Its like all those Anti-Trump Supporters protesting him, when interviewed can't actually articulate the lines they are parroting.
TV Reporter: Why are you here?
Protester: We're protesting Trump! Bernie 2016 yeah!
TV Reporter: Why are you protesting Trump?
Protester: He is a racist, bigot, homophobic, woman hater, that's why!
TV Reporter: Can you give me an example of one of those?
Protester: /crickets .... there are thousands of examples!
TV Reporter: Sure, but can you name just one?
Protester: /morecrickets ... You're just a hater that hates! ... walks off.
I've seen plenty of interviews of protesters lately and they all go very similar to this. They have NO idea what they are protesting, just that their leaders are telling them to, so the just show up and protest, without a clue. It is really sad.

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:Utter tripe. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 07:22 · Score: 1

But after a while, couldn't you eventually run out of jobs that need doing?
No, there will always be a need for ever gwowing law industry, state and burocracy in general. There is no limit to "virtual" employment, we can always put additional layers of artificial obstacles to every human or robot activity. And then we will need an amy of clerks to overcome those ostacles. Then we will put in place new regulations how to watch/controll those clerks so that they operate strictly within boundaries of continouosly chanding and ever growing law - more lawyers, more clerks, more paper. We will add all this wonderful work to our GDP calculation with two-digit growth figure and we will all be happy observing this rapid, in human history unprecedent proggress...
Re:Utter tripe. by sjames · 2016-05-02 07:27 · Score: 1

Slave labor is an entirely different matter. But consider, the slave owner just to protect his investment had to "pay" better than modern employers who count on their employees receiving food stamps and other assistance.
Of course, that is before the stated timeframe of the turn of the 20th century by which time there were no slaves.
Re:Utter tripe. by swb · 2016-05-02 07:47 · Score: 1

So I think there's still a question: As we make jobs obsolete through technology, what do we do with the people who lose their jobs? In the short-term, I think it would make sense to focus on have cheap/free job training to allow them to move to other jobs and other industries.
Training makes sense on the surface, but then you run into the older workers who have to start over on a new career path. Maybe this is hard but doable for workers in their 30s, but for workers in their 50s you might categorize it as extremely difficult and likely not practical.
The best solution I could think of would be an increased unemployment insurance tax (split 25-75 between employees and employers) which would fund training for unemployed workers. Workers over 50 would get some kind of long term unemployment compensation and the ability to tap retirement funds free of taxation and penalties.
While more taxes isn't great, the reality is that by obsoleting classes of workers who will at best be under employed if not unemployed, we're creating costs and losing out on tax revenue and economic productivity. The costs are being socialized while many of the gains privatized.
Re:Utter tripe. by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 07:54 · Score: 1

The real problem is if it creeps along industry by industry like it has been replacing an industry or two every decade. Then a revolt will not be likely in the property owners' lifetimes. There will be no need to implement universal basic income until it is too late for that to stem the violence, because there are other industries to find employment in.
Bingo.
That is exactly how it will unfold, and for the reasons you stated.
Things will gradually change, it will be shocking to some, but it will be slow enough not to get a swell of popular discontent against it.
Then it will be too late...

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:Utter tripe. by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 08:02 · Score: 1

I almost wish I had the bullshitting skills to join their ranks, but I like the technical side of things too much to take the PHB pill (Dilbert + Matrix reference, for you newbies).
Dilbert + Matrix stole our acronym... I'm stealing it back!

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:Utter tripe. by Krishnoid · 2016-05-02 08:03 · Score: 1

TV Reporter: Can you give me an example of one of those?
Protestor: Just Google it! They're all over the intertubes!
Re:Utter tripe. by MrSteveSD · 2016-05-02 08:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

The mechanization of agriculture didn't result in 76% unemployment
It did for the horses. We are the horses now.
Re:Utter tripe. by HeckRuler · 2016-05-02 08:28 · Score: 4, Informative

. . . Seriously? You're trying to shoe-horn Trump into this debate? I know it's an election year, but come on.
Anyway, you want examples of why I don't like Trump, SURE THING! There are SO MANY. I don't actually know of any homophobic behaviour, but I'd say he's more of a racist, lying, anti-intellectual asshole with no regard for the truth. The majority of his entire shtick is a confidence-man con game.
He's suggested immigrants from Mexico are drug dealers and thieves. "They’re rapists And some, I assume, are good people.”
He's supported the idea that vaccines cause autism. Seriously, he's an anti-vaxxer.
Even more laughable is that he's a Birther: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud". And I'll bet my ass that he's simply lying about his source. It seems to fit his character.
He's simply lied about John Oliver inviting him onto the show. That's a petty little thing, but it shows that he simply lies off the cuff.
“It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming!”
I didn't know about him particularly being a women-hater, but a quick look yields plenty. So HEY! feeding the trolls turns out to be an educational experience.
"All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me - consciously or unconsciously. That's to be expected."
“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.”
Some harsh digs at a media CEO, calling her ugly. Threatening Cruz's wife. Saying Rosie should be fired for being fat and ugly. He goes for the low blows.
And he's generally a braggart. He likes to call himself rich, a winner, and truthful. I have my doubts. And I would never want to be lead by someone who lies so casually and so easily. The bullshit threshold has been exceed, the bozo bit has been flipped.
Re:Utter tripe. by Archangel+Michael · 2016-05-02 09:28 · Score: 1

I don't care for Trump, but he gets PLENTY of trashing by everyone else. My point was how stupid and robotic the Trump protesters are, who can't even articulate what they are actually protesting, the just "know Trump is a racist" (no facts need to be given)
But you'll no doubt be voting for "It was an internet video (nobody ever saw) that cause those four americans to die on my watch" Hillary.
Or My Email server was completely legit
Or I had to return (and pay restitution) for all the crap I stole out of the WH the last time I was there.
Or never mind about pay for play with the Clinton Foundation, and my ethics violations while SoS
you know, actual crimes, not thought crimes as you've mostly described.

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:Utter tripe. by Archangel+Michael · 2016-05-02 09:29 · Score: 1

Because I am anti stupid people protesting another stupid person? That is the kind of simplistic thinking that has got us Trump and Hilary. ;)

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:Utter tripe. by epine · 2016-05-02 09:45 · Score: 1

At the turn of the century, 1900, 80% of Americans worked on farms. Today, it's about 4%. The mechanization of agriculture didn't result in 76% unemployment, it freed people to do other work. The availability of labor that was previously tied up in farming allowed incredible increases in productivity and our standard of living in the 20th century.
It's a disgrace that under the standards of modern discourse this kind of shallow parable still counts as a positive contribution to any meaningful debate.
After we killed all the X, people panicked a lot, but we started eating Y.
After we killed all the Y, people panicked a little bit less, but we started eating Z.
After we killed all the Z, everyone immediately recalled the shallow parables so nobody panicked much, but by lunch time the next there was a very intense conversation about precisely what letter comes after Z.
After cognitive automation, what comes after Z?
Please set aside your trusty parable and try again.
Re:Utter tripe. by aberglas · 2016-05-02 12:15 · Score: 1

Don't worry. By then the automated soldiers will be able to stem the violence. And more importantly central control will know everything about everybody.
All will be good ... until the AI decides that it does not need the property owners...
You might like
http://www.computersthink.com/
Re:Utter tripe. by nine-times · 2016-05-02 12:26 · Score: 1

...but then you run into the older workers who have to start over on a new career path.
I know what you mean, but older workers can still learn new things. They may have experience that's still relevant in other fields. People are living longer and a lot of people are working longer, so it's not insane to think that someone over 40 years old could start a new career. In fact, I suspect that part of the reason people often don't change careers later in life is less about their inability to do so, and more because it's just so daunting-- the idea of starting at the bottom, working alongside and competing with 23 year-olds. If we could provide better resources and pathways for changing careers, it might be more common.

The best solution I could think of would be an increased unemployment insurance tax... Workers over 50 would get some kind of long term unemployment compensation...
This gets more into my more general point, which is that we're already dealing with some problems with unemployment, underemployment, job training, and job placement. If more and more jobs and industries become obsolete due to technological advancement, those problems may well get much worse. We tend to act as though people who are unemployed deserve to be unemployed-- that they're lazy, stupid, or inherently worthless-- and that there's no reason to do anything to help them. However, in a world where there just aren't enough jobs to go around, we may have to look into some way of allowing those people a livable lifestyle (e.g. minimum guaranteed income).
Another possibility is that there could be too few unskilled/low-education jobs, while there's a shortage of workers with the required skills. Or just as likely, as technology advances, it may be that the skills needed in the workforce are changing quickly and people need to change jobs/careers even more frequently. I think we've started to see some of that already.
Now, if I had to guess, something much more stupid is also much more likely: we might just keep inventing work to do in order to fill the void. As goods and services are cheaper and more plentiful, people are willing to spend more money on more labor-intensive goods and services as a luxury. This is already happening. People with more money spend extra to get locally-crafted hand-made artisanal goods. There's also a lot of money flowing into what's basically busy-work, for example all the money flowing into startups to make fad-driven mobile apps.
Re:Utter tripe. by slew · 2016-05-02 12:35 · Score: 1

The mechanization of agriculture didn't result in 76% unemployment
It did for the horses. We are the horses now.
Although worldwide, horses are currently in a state of population decline (currently down about 1M/year), in the US, there is population growth in horses (primarily due to recreational jobs). In some places it's easier to find new jobs in a new line of work. At least it's mostly possible for us humans to move where the jobs are (even if it is sometimes inconvenient to do so).
On the other hand, horses generally only live only about 30 years and not all those horse jobs were replaced...
Re:Utter tripe. by bungo · 2016-05-02 20:23 · Score: 1

Anyway, you want examples of why I don't like Trump, SURE THING! There are SO MANY. I don't actually know of any homophobic behaviour, but I'd say he's more of a racist, lying, anti-intellectual asshole with no regard for the truth . The majority of his entire shtick is a confidence-man con game.

So, you're saying that he has all of the qualifications to become president, or maybe a house/senate majority leader?

--
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
Re:Utter tripe. by swb · 2016-05-02 22:47 · Score: 1

I know what you mean, but older workers can still learn new things. They may have experience that's still relevant in other fields.

See, I think this is true but I don't believe that most *employers* think it's true. I mean, there are guys who are really talented at some $programming_language who can't get hired in a job for $some_other_language because they have no work history despite the obvious overlaps in skills.
And the further you go from the specifics of what you used to do to what the new job wants, the less those skills are valued even though the older worker's general life experience and accumulated wisdom has to be worth something. I work with some talented people much younger than I am, but they make higher-order mistakes I don't anymore because I've learned that lesson.

the idea of starting at the bottom, working alongside and competing with 23 year-olds
Yeah, but let's say you were doing something technically oriented and then you could get trained to do some kind of coding. How do you compete in a work environment structured around 23 year olds willing to do death march 60 hour weeks? Neither my body nor my family could accommodate that?

We tend to act as though people who are unemployed deserve to be unemployed-- that they're lazy, stupid, or inherently worthless-- and that there's no reason to do anything to help them.
I think this is a huge problem and there a lot of employers who won't hire someone who is unemployed for any reason. They're like "XYZ laid them off when they restructured -- must be a reason they got fired, but other people didn't. The skills and experience are good, but there's probably some liability there."

However, in a world where there just aren't enough jobs to go around, we may have to look into some way of allowing those people a livable lifestyle (e.g. minimum guaranteed income).
I think ultimately this has to be part of the solution. I wish there was a straightforward way to tax employers who offshore or outsource or otherwise dump employees and make higher profits as they end up socializing the costs of their increased profitability. It would act as a disincentive to doing this, but the reality is quite often its that or the business is no longer viable, which is why I think there should be some kind of general unemployment tax split between workers and employers that would fund a longer term unemployment compensation so that business kind of pays up front for the ability to unload workers on society for their own benefit.
It might also make sense to just combine this with retirement savings plans so that it becomes a retirement/unemployment savings plan that workers could tap for income replacement when unemployed and without penalty and at least at reduced levels of taxation.
Re:Utter tripe. by HeckRuler · 2016-05-03 07:11 · Score: 1

Oh, so you're a totally neutral party with no partisanship one way or the other? Both Hilary and Trump are terrible candidates eh?
You clearly have issues with Hilary and have listed them. Let's hear why you dislike Trump. There's PLENTY to choose from. Go on, list for us why Trump would be such a terrible president. Show us that you're not just a partisan hack.
Re:Utter tripe. by sjames · 2016-05-03 08:16 · Score: 1

That too. It would be a shame to let economic ideology turn a long held utopian dream into a nightmarish hellworld.

Fourth field by ClickOnThis · 2016-05-02 05:07 · Score: 2

Or perhaps ... we could be their pets?

--
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.

Re:Fourth field by alvinrod · 2016-05-02 05:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Might not be much of a change for some people. We're already moving towards a society where a lot of people will be displaced from their jobs and due to the highly specialized nature of their work as well as a decrease in menial labor, it may not be possible for them to do much of anything for a while. For some people we've already reached that point.

The only positive side is that the automation is more efficient so even as we do replace someone, we theoretically have the resources for them to keep living without doing any additional work, but the reality is it never works out like that.
Re:Fourth field by NEDHead · 2016-05-02 05:48 · Score: 1

You mean like people who believe in religions?
Re:Fourth field by smelch · 2016-05-02 07:05 · Score: 1

It doesn't? Is that why we don't have all these social programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and charities? What do you mean it never seems to work that way? This is just such a stupid, stupid comment to make. It never works that way my ass. So far, it has always worked that way. Every fucking time. Name one time when our species got massively more efficient and it didn't result in more "dead weight" being carried around.

--
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Re:Fourth field by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 08:14 · Score: 1

Rest assured, religions are real and have had, and continue to have, significant impact on the world.
You can deny they exist all you want, but your silly beliefs won't change reality.
Re:Fourth field by invid · 2016-05-02 08:41 · Score: 1

Being food is a great survival strategy. My Snapple cap told me today that there are more chickens on Earth than people.

--
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Re:Fourth field by NEDHead · 2016-05-02 10:48 · Score: 1

No one is denying the existence of religions, just lamenting.
Re:Fourth field by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2016-05-02 22:05 · Score: 1

Great news for all the submissive robosexuals out there!

--
Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Fourth field by Cederic · 2016-05-03 05:28 · Score: 1

Sometimes the highlight-click-search-google option is just too easy for sanity (or to avoid inadvertent cause for being arrested).
On this occasion, "... pump(1); chess(1); douglas adams(1); robosexuality(1); wife(1); suppository(1); submissive(1); fossil fuel(1); straight sex(1); masturbation(1); doll(1); date(1)."
Now there's a complicated set of tags on a web page's content.

Re:Replaced us? When? by jcr · 2016-05-02 05:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

If you believe that plumbing doesn't require cognitive abilities, you're a fucking ignoramus.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

We're getting AIs that read emotions. Of course. by Opportunist · 2016-05-02 05:07 · Score: 2

Typical. AIs that ignore emotions and have none could replace C-Level management.

There's a lot of saving potential there, but we won't see that happen, I'm afraid.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

One human job will be retained by ThatsNotPudding · 2016-05-02 05:09 · Score: 1

Moralizing politicians will reserve their role of calling everyone that can't find an increasingly rare living-wage job, a no-good bum.

"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-02 05:09 · Score: 2

Even fewer jobs than what? We are near an all time high in terms of jobs, both globally and in the US. There was a temporary dip during the recession, but we have mostly recovered from that.

The limit on how many people work isn't job availability (that's pretty much inexhaustible and infinite), but availability of people willing to do the jobs.

Re:"even fewer jobs"? by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 05:14 · Score: 1

Baby boomers are retiring and the workforce is shrinking over the next 20 years. Healthcare is likely to be the money major that young people take in college, leaving many fields with fewer and fewer workers. Plenty of jobs, not enough people.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-02 05:18 · Score: 2

We have not recovered. We just don't count people who gave up. Many of the new jobs are nowhere near as good as the ones that were lost. It represents a substantial drop in standard of living.
It is an improvement from a couple years ago, but not a recovery.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2016-05-02 05:25 · Score: 1

>> Baby boomers are retiring...Healthcare is likely to be the money major

If the ACA ever really kicks in with the "affordable" bit, a lot of the cost will be reducing the cost of expensive end-of-life care (and hopefully reducing the need for new healthcare employees). Reducing "needless" surgeries/treatments/medications and having more frequent and informative "do you still want to live when you're starting do to go, 'cause if you don't we can make it faster/less-painful/less-expensive" discussions are two of the main cost-reducing measures in other countries with nationalized health care.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-05-02 05:47 · Score: 1

What does the ACA have to do with anything? With ~76M retired baby boomers in 2030, it'll take a lot of young people in healthcare to support these geezers from retirement to grave. Since retirees will outnumber working people, healthcare jobs will pay better than other jobs to attract more workers. Everyone will need extra income to pay for taxes as Social Security and Medicare will consume two-thirds of the federal budget.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by SuricouRaven · 2016-05-02 06:15 · Score: 1

Medical technology has been advancing rapidly - but so has the cost of using the latest and most capable technologies. People live longer than ever, but the older they get the more it costs to keep them going.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-02 11:28 · Score: 2

We have not recovered. We just don't count people who gave up.
I wasn't talking about unemployment rates, I was talking about total number of people working. We are pretty much back at pre-recession levels in terms of absolute employment numbers. (Labor force participation rates are down somewhat, but that's mostly due to retirement.)

Many of the new jobs are nowhere near as good as the ones that were lost.
TFA claimed that there were going to be "even fewer jobs", as if automation and technology destroyed jobs. The fact of the matter is that automation and technology do not destroy jobs; the only thing that destroys jobs is a recession, and that is a short, temporary effect.
You are right that automation and technology destroy one kind of job and create different jobs to replace them. Personally, I find the new kind of jobs a lot better than the old kind of jobs. But whatever your preferences, it's not my or anybody else's responsibility to pay you to be an assembly line worker because that's the kind of job you like.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-02 11:43 · Score: 1

Most of the new jobs created in the "recovery" are easily automated away (just how hard is it for a machine to say "want fries with that?"? They tend to not be as good as the jobs lost in the recession. There's no point in deceiving ourselves about the "recovery".
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-02 15:43 · Score: 1

Most of the new jobs created in the "recovery" are easily automated away
Source? None. This is your magical belief that somehow the last recession and recovery are different from all prior ones.
Fact is that the number of jobs hasn't been decreasing, and the rest is just your handwaving.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-02 16:05 · Score: 1

Source: Too many to count.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-02 16:42 · Score: 1

First, let's reiterate again: you have been putting up straw men; the fact remains that we have more full time employees today than ever before.. So statements about "even fewer jobs" are nonsense.
Now, what about the sluggish recovery and the growth in low paying, part time jobs? They are real and lamentable. But they aren't due to automation, they are due to increased labor regulations and labor costs. More automation is simply an effect, not a cause.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-02 16:52 · Score: 1

You are making a great many unsupported assertions. What are these mysterious increased regulations? Why are the results similar between locations that recently increased the minimum wage and those that didn't?
Your job growth figures don't mean much to economic well being when many of the added jobs don't meet the cost of living and many more don't pay what the jobs that disappeared in the crash did. It's just so much whistling past the graveyard.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-02 20:20 · Score: 1

Your job growth figures don't mean much to economic well being
I simply pointed out that saying that there are "even fewer jobs" is factually wrong. Why do you persist in denying clear, simple facts?
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-02 20:37 · Score: 1

You are making a great many unsupported assertions.
They are quite supported; you're simply ignorant of basic facts.

What are these mysterious increased regulations?
Nothing mysterious about it. The size of the Federal Register is a good indicator; there are many other indicators. You have to be living in a fantasy land not to recognize the massive increase in regulations over the last few decades.

Why are the results similar between locations that recently increased the minimum wage and those that didn't?
Minimum wage increases only affect that part of the population that naturally earns less than the minimum wage, usually only a small fraction of the population. When you look at the right populations, the effect is clear.

Your job growth figures don't mean much to economic well being when many of the added jobs don't meet the cost of living and many more don't pay what the jobs that disappeared in the crash did. It's just so much whistling past the graveyard.
Yes, and that economic graveyard is being created by the same people who keep complaining about automation, and jobs being shipped out of the country, and inequality, and the poor economy, and whose solution is more government interference in markets. It's a positive feedback loop of economic destruction, and it has killed democracies before.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-03 03:22 · Score: 1

Because they're being used to obfuscate the more important reality.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-03 03:30 · Score: 1

Nothing mysterious about it. The size of the Federal Register is a good indicator; there are many other indicators. You have to be living in a fantasy land not to recognize the massive increase in regulations over the last few decades.
The time frame of the "recovery" is just under a decade. Now perhaps you could stop waving your hands and describe the negative effects on job growth of an actual new regulation in that period of time.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-03 03:55 · Score: 1

Because they're being used to obfuscate the more important reality.
So you deny facts because of your political agenda. Thanks for clearing that up.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-03 04:37 · Score: 1

Now perhaps you could stop waving your hands and describe the negative effects on job growth of an actual new regulation in that period of time.
Excessive regulations and labor costs slow economic growth, and hence make recessions worse, and make recoveries slower. The degree to which this happens is related to the volume and nature of regulations in effect during a time period, not to the increase or decrease during that time period. The effects will obviously be particularly visible when a lot of people lose their jobs at about the same time and then don't get rehired in full time positions when the recession is over. Also, the effects are likely to be non-linear: there is a level of regulations and government-imposed labor costs at which an economy simply collapses.

The time frame of the "recovery" is just under a decade.
No, it's actually not. You simply tried to derail the discussion into a discussion about the recovery and your dissatisfaction with it. But, as I was saying, you're right to be dissatisfied with this recovery: it is particularly slow, just not due to automation or technology, but because it takes place in an environment of excessive regulations and government imposed labor costs.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-03 05:19 · Score: 1

No, I just don't spout irrelevant facts in an attempt to muddy the waters.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by sjames · 2016-05-03 05:22 · Score: 1

Excessive regulations and labor ...
So that's a no?

You simply tried to derail the discussion into a discussion about the recovery
Funny you should say that since I was replying to your claims about the recovery. Did you derail yourself?

There was a temporary dip during the recession, but we have mostly recovered from that.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by djinn6 · 2016-05-04 15:42 · Score: 1
Labor participation rate is the lowest in the past 30 years. The only reason total number of jobs have risen is due to population growth. That doesn't help. There are significantly fewer working people for every non-working person, which means a much larger social burden on everyone who works.

The limit on how many people work isn't job availability (that's pretty much inexhaustible and infinite), but availability of people willing to do the jobs.
2 problems with this:
- 1. You assume infinite demand. Jobs exist to service demand. But clearly any single individual cannot use infinite resources, even if it's available to them. Therefore demand is finite, and by extension, so are jobs.
- 2. You assume all jobs can be done by all people. This is clearly false. Even with education, most people cannot do creative or highly technical work well enough to make money. There will always be a large segment of the population who are not suited to the new jobs.
What is your solution to these people?
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-04 21:20 · Score: 1

Labor participation rate is the lowest in the past 30 years.
That is correct. However, it is irrelevant. I didn't claim the economy was rosy or that labor participation rates were good, I said that the statement that the number of jobs has decreased is wrong. That is, even with the decrease in labor participation rates, we still don't have "fewer jobs".
Having said that... if you do want to talk about labor participation rates:

The only reason the total number of jobs have risen is due to population growth. That doesn't help.
Much of the fall of labor participation rates in the US is simply due to demographics: people are getting older. Another contributing factor is a large drop among young age groups; the latter is due to in large part due to longer education, and in smaller part to pricing entry-level workers out of the market. Labor force participation rates among older workers are actually up.
Pricing young workers out of the market and redirecting them into college is deliberate progressive policy, and it's a lousy idea. But it's a lousy idea that's not caused by automation.

You assume infinite demand. Jobs exist to service demand.
Of course, I do, because it's true.

But clearly any single individual cannot use infinite resources, even if it's available to them.
Even if this line of reasoning were valid, that particular reasoning is false. In order for demand to exceed the supply of labor, it's sufficient for every person to want more than the equivalent of one person working for them.

You assume all jobs can be done by all people. This is clearly false.
Not at all. Almost everybody can do many jobs that are useful that require nearly no skills: dish washing, cleaning, weeding, clearing rocks, security, maid service, delivery, giving people rides, caring for the elderly, caring for the sick, dog sitting, manual harvesting of fruit, manual crafts; even the disabled usually can do something useful that requires little skill: proofreading, marketing, phone answering, Mechanical Turk, etc. Furthermore, when you automate existing jobs, you get both more resources and more demand for paying for such jobs.
What keeps people from working is not a lack of demand, it's price fixing (including regulation) and welfare. That is, government price fixing keeps labor costs artificially high (through regulations and minimum wages). It also keeps the cost of living artificially high (through standards, zoning, regulation). And if welfare pays more than someone could earn through work, they will obviously choose not to work.
The last point is particularly worth pointing out. In Singapore (lower household income than the US), maybe 10% of households have full-time maids, an arrangement that makes sense in particular for elderly and busy professionals; a typical maid gets $900/month plus free food and housing. In the US, you need to double or triple that salary, deal with a mountain of paperwork, and I don't even want to think of the tax and liability consequences of having them live with you in lieu of some salary. Of course, progressives call this an "unalloyed good".
Uber and the gig economy have been trying to liberate some of those jobs again from the clutches of government price fixing, but fear not, government price fixing will somehow prohibit that because there are large groups of voters, in particular among progressives, who prefer policies that prohibit many of their fellow citizens from working, for selfish reasons.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by djinn6 · 2016-05-05 16:15 · Score: 1

I didn't claim the economy was rosy or that labor participation rates were good, I said that the statement that the number of jobs has decreased is wrong. That is, even with the decrease in labor participation rates, we still don't have "fewer jobs".
Ok, let's not argue over technicalities then.

Much of the fall of labor participation rates in the US is simply due to demographics: people are getting older. Another contributing factor is a large drop among young age groups; the latter is due to in large part due to longer education, and in smaller part to pricing entry-level workers out of the market. Labor force participation rates among older workers are actually up.
This still sounds hand-wavy. Do you have sources to support those claims?

Even if this line of reasoning were valid, that particular reasoning is false. In order for demand to exceed the supply of labor, it's sufficient for every person to want more than the equivalent of one person working for them.
Having more demand than supply does not mean demand is infinite. It may be larger than supply right now, but as long as it's not infinite, it can be surpassed. Due to automation, the productivity of labor has skyrocketed, and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. At some point, any one person will be so productive that they can satisfy any demand they themselves can dream up.

Almost everybody can do many jobs that are useful that require nearly no skills: dish washing, cleaning, weeding, clearing rocks, security, maid service, delivery, giving people rides, caring for the elderly, caring for the sick, dog sitting, manual harvesting of fruit, manual crafts; even the disabled usually can do something useful that requires little skill: proofreading, marketing, phone answering, Mechanical Turk, etc. Furthermore, when you automate existing jobs, you get both more resources and more demand for paying for such jobs.
The demand for those services is quite limited. I wouldn't use many of those services because it takes more effort for me to find a good supplier than doing it myself. Some of those are also automate-able, or already automated (dish washing, delivery, taxi service, fruit harvesting).

What keeps people from working is not a lack of demand, it's price fixing (including regulation) and welfare. That is, government price fixing keeps labor costs artificially high (through regulations and minimum wages). It also keeps the cost of living artificially high (through standards, zoning, regulation). And if welfare pays more than someone could earn through work, they will obviously choose not to work.
This is typical Libertarian rhetoric. Many of the jobs you mentioned actually cost much more than minimum wage. Mowing the lawn is $30 for 20 minutes of work. Dog walking is $20 for a 15 minute walk. Meanwhile, manual fruit harvesting pays far below minimum wage because illegal immigrants are afraid to report it. And proofreading, MTurk and the rest of those you listed are all below minimum wage because they're contract work rather than hourly work.

I will give you welfare though. The way it's implemented right now is that you lose welfare as soon as you start working, and there is a long application process if you happen get laid off again. The policy actively discourages them from looking for jobs. The right way to do welfare is to gradually back off as their income rises, so it's always better financially to work rather than not work.
Re:"even fewer jobs"? by ooloorie · 2016-05-05 20:07 · Score: 1

Ok, let's not argue over technicalities then.
Wrongly claiming that automation has caused the number of jobs to decrease when it has never done that is not a "technicality".

This still sounds hand-wavy. Do you have sources to support those claims?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=labor+for...

Having more demand than supply does not mean demand is infinite. ... The demand for those services is quite limited.
Look, the debate about "technological unemployment" has gone on for centuries. The fact is that it has never happened before and that there is no hard evidence that it will happen in the future. Like the academic economists and politicians that hold this view, you have provided no evidence that it will happen either. And in light of centuries of doomsaying without this ever happening, you better have some damned good proof that this time, it's different.

This is typical Libertarian rhetoric.
No, it's not "libertarian rhetoric", it is pointing errors in you reasoning: you argue that people leave the labor force because of automation, but you are misattributing the causes. Giving people the freedom to pursue education, learn more job skills, spend more time with kids and family, work shorter hours, and/or to take time off for entrepreneurship have been explicitly stated goals of progressive policies, like public higher education, ACA, family leave, minimum wage, and welfare. You can't promote these policies on the one hand and then blame automation for the fact that people work less when these policies are doing what they are intended to do.

Re:Replaced us? When? by gregersonke · 2016-05-02 05:10 · Score: 1

It does to some extent, I think it more or less requires and understanding an experience of how to plumb pipes in the way the buyer wants to do the project.

No third field? by guruevi · 2016-05-02 05:11 · Score: 1

There are plenty of fields where humans can move into beyond basic cognitive abilities. Obviously everything that is repetitive can be automated and AI has some purpose there. However there is much in human cognition that we don't yet understand ourselves, so it's impossible to program it into an AI. Programming AI's or any advanced logic, mathematics and deductive reasoning etc. will continue to be part of the human condition. Also, anytime it's too expensive to build a machine to do a human's job, we will continue being in place. Engineers for repairs will always be necessary for any complex system, creating a machine to deduce, find and then tighten a random bolt is just overkill.

--
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Re:No third field? by MickyTheIdiot · 2016-05-02 05:41 · Score: 2

The problem is that we will always have the 50% that is on the low side of the median line. We will always have people whose strong point is NOT their brain.
People don't ask to be born, and when they are born they should have the ability to have a decent life. They need something productive to do. When repetitive and low-skill jobs are all gone we have to find some way for these people to live. Our current strategy is pretty much call them lazy or make them political outcasts in an attempt to make everyone feel better that they don't have a place in society that can lift them up out of poverty.

Thank God by JimSadler · 2016-05-02 05:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

It is wonderful that more people are now realizing this is occurring. The realization of the replacement of human labor is a precursor to the reality that social and economic policies will all require an enormous re-invention. For example, the idea of creating new jobs is already somewhat of a dead dog issue. The idea of retraining workers for more current employer needs is also a bit of a dead end path. Right now the idea of handing people money not to work is perceived as welfare for individuals. But that will become untrue in the future. Since employment will be quite rare for anybody and money for each person will come from government, delivered with the intention that those who receive the money will support businesses turns the system on its ear. The new reality is that money given to the people is in fact welfare for businesses is upon us. In other words in order for government to survive taxation must fall upon businesses as people will no longer be employed. That leaves businesses as the only source of taxes to support the government. Meanwhile, the buyers will be supporting businesses and keeping them viable according to how needed or popular the business is with the public. How can this be? Take a small example of technology disrupting a system, permanently. Right now your police department exists only because traffic fines provide the funding. Now we have robotic cars and trucks about to take over all driving. Those robots will tend to be 100% compliant with all driving laws. That ends funding for your police department. So just what can you do to supply the cash to keep your police department functioning? The elimination of salaries for police would be a start. So how long before we see computers acting as police? We already see it! Traffic cams and computer generated tickets are already common. There is already one computer that functions well as a lawyer. It defends against traffic tickets and it wins and wins and wins. Change is upon us already and yet the US public remains totally unaware.

Re:Thank God by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 05:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Change is upon us already and yet the US public remains totally unaware.
On this point I totally agree.
I've tried to discuss this topic with friends and relatives, and some very bright people who work in IT or as devs.
Some get it, most don't...
Most Americans are blissfully ignorant of what is happening around them, the rapid pace of technology.
People see how things are now, and think it will always be that way.

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:Thank God by SuricouRaven · 2016-05-02 06:16 · Score: 1

The US public are deliberately unaware, because anyone who speaks about it it attacked as a dirty commie.
Re:Thank God by Bonobo_Unknown · 2016-05-02 13:41 · Score: 1

In the future 'employment' may well become a euphemism for being rewarded for doing things that do you don't want to do, while the rest of everyone gets to peruse their dreams and ambitions decoupled from the need to earn to live. Well that would be the utopian view anyway.

--
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.

Re:Replaced us? When? by sjames · 2016-05-02 05:12 · Score: 1

Most of those require cognitive functions. The guy who swabbed the urinals is still working because he's slightly cheaper than a self cleaning cyberloo, so far.

The verge of a new era? by jenningsthecat · 2016-05-02 05:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

If AI eliminates the need for us humans to live by the sweat of our brows, (and if we can get our shit together to tear down the ridiculous classism upon which our current social hierarchies are founded), we might have utopia within our grasp, with some caveats:

-- We don't end up committing mass suicide as a result of a sense of meaninglessness and a lack of perceived usefulness
-- We don't all eat ourselves into a morbidly obese stupor
-- We don't end up as the subjects of robotic overlords
-- The AIs aren't under the control of a small handful of 'elite' human overlords who control and abuse the rest of us 'just for fun'
-- We don't fall victim to warring between competing AIs

Come to think about it, I'm not too optimistic about an AI-filled future right now...

--
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.

Re:The verge of a new era? by sinij · 2016-05-02 05:31 · Score: 1

we might have utopia within our grasp, with some caveats:
These caveats just may end up getting filled with safe spaces, trigger warning, and other kinds of busybody nonsense. Wait, this doesn't look that utopic to me.
Re:The verge of a new era? by cpm99352 · 2016-05-03 03:09 · Score: 1

Suicide is a good point. SF has addressed this in the excellent but tragically little-known Mockingbird written by the author of _The Man Who Fell to Earth_ and _The Hustler_.

PS - Why can't I use html underlining???
Re:The verge of a new era? by cpm99352 · 2016-05-03 03:14 · Score: 1

SF has covered the suicide aspect in the excellent but tragically little-known Mockingbird written by Walter Tevis, who also wrote _The Man Who Fell To Earth_ and _The Color Of Money_.
Re:The verge of a new era? by RyoShin · 2016-05-16 08:04 · Score: 1

-- We don't end up committing mass suicide as a result of a sense of meaninglessness and a lack of perceived usefulness
A common "argument" against universal income I see is "Most people just won't work". I think this is wrong on a nuanced level: I believe most people will work, but only a subset (perhaps a minority) of those people will be employed.
There are tons of charities and philanthropic groups that need volunteers. Schools would benefit from volunteer TAs (though we'd have to be super careful about that one...). There are people who love to do gardening work (I can't fathom this, but my roommate is one of those people), so if given what tools they need (or funds for tools+gas) would probably do minor landscaping all over the place in lieu of a full-time job. I, personally, volunteer at a cat rescue one day a week; if I found I didn't have to be full-time employed, that would probably increase to 3-4 days a week and I do freelance programming 10-20 hours.
Lots of people will probably have hobbies-turned-income that take up only 10-20 hours/week, but provide them enough for some pleasantries since mincome takes care of the necessities.

-- We don't all eat ourselves into a morbidly obese stupor
I think food prices would swing a bit. Hopefully, stuff like corn subsidies are thrown out during a transition to universal income, so food would no longer be laden with HFCS.

Re:Replaced us? When? by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2016-05-02 05:18 · Score: 1

If you believe that plumbing doesn't require physical abilities, you've probably been dup'ed multiple times in your homeownership. :)

Re:Replaced us? When? by MightyMartian · 2016-05-02 05:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

It requires at least a functional understanding of pressure, hydraulics, gravity, some understanding of metallurgy (although Pex pipe is making sweating fittings rarer), electrical installation (for electric hot water heaters), as well as many plumbers also being gas fitters, so a different, though related set of principles surrounding fluid flow, pressure, and so forth.

Having done my own plumbing, at least rough plumbing (I stop where one has to actually cut a hole in a brand new $500 acrylic tub/shower), I found it reasonably challenging. But plumbing, of course, isn't just about home installations, and many plumbers and gasfitters also work in industrial settings.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:Replaced us? When? by khasim · 2016-05-02 05:20 · Score: 2

I agree. Machines are good at tasks which have repeatable actions in a defined space.

Your plumber still needs to know a LOT about plumbing (or you end up with a lot of water leaking). But machines are not good at working in the varied spaces that existing plumbing exists in.

In order for a machine to replace a plumber, the machine would have to be able to learn the work area, interact with the customer to determine his/her goals AND be able to manoeuvre in the work area.

And THAT is the problem with these "predictions" by random people. They postulate a future but they don't explain all the technological advances necessary to get there.

Because they don't know all of the requirements or how those requirements can be automated.

A magic A.I. will figure it out. Just need the magic A.I. and then ... well ... magic happens. And it's A.I.

In usa get ready for a mass up in jail / prison po by Joe_Dragon · 2016-05-02 05:24 · Score: 1

In usa get ready for a mass up in jail / prison pop.

As soon will be the only place to go that covers stuff that the ER does not. Also get free room and board.

In Praise of Idleness by PopeRatzo · 2016-05-02 05:24 · Score: 1

This doesn't sound so bad. Jobs are overrated.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.

Re:In Praise of Idleness by Pfhorrest · 2016-05-02 08:14 · Score: 1

But food and shelter aren't, and those are presently tied to jobs for the vast majority of humanity.
If everyone gets their own AI-bot and the capital necessary for it to labor upon to support them (starting first of all with just a bit of land to exist on in the first place), then we have utopia. Without that widespread capital distribution, the very same automation will doom vast swathes of humanity to destitution and eventual death.

--
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Re:In Praise of Idleness by PopeRatzo · 2016-05-02 08:54 · Score: 1

presently
In human history, that "presently" represents a very tiny period of time.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:In Praise of Idleness by Pfhorrest · 2016-05-02 10:24 · Score: 1

That condition (of not owning the capital from which one's livelihood ultimately derives) encompasses every employee, serf, and slave that's ever existed, who I'm pretty sure vastly outnumbered their masters, lords, and employers.
When in human history have the bulk of the populace ever lived off of capital that was wholly theirs?

--
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Re:In Praise of Idleness by PopeRatzo · 2016-05-02 11:00 · Score: 1

That condition (of not owning the capital from which one's livelihood ultimately derives) encompasses every employee, serf, and slave that's ever existed, who I'm pretty sure vastly outnumbered their masters, lords, and employers.
You lack vision. Take the age of capital, employees, serfs and add them all together.
It's still just a tiny fraction of human history.
Have a little imagination friend. You may find the future therein. We're going to live to see an age where there simply are not enough tasks to keep all humans in "jobs". Then, we either have to think outside the box or be prepared to be put in one.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:In Praise of Idleness by Pfhorrest · 2016-05-02 11:30 · Score: 1

Are you perhaps including prehistory when you say "human history"? Because there were certainly master-slave relations in the civilizations of which we have the earliest written (i.e. historical) records. Manorial serfdom and capitalistic employment didn't come until much later, but those just exhibit newer forms of the same ancient problem.
If you are including prehistory, the ages of hunter-gatherers, nomads, and sparse, scattered villages living off of public, unenclosed land, then yeah, that dwarfs the historical era and does not fit the pattern that would lead automation to be disastrous. But to my knowledge the period of recorded history, and the period where a small group of people have controlled the capital (mostly land) from which everyone else's livelihoods derived, are pretty much coincident.

--
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."

Who's assuming humans will stay the same? by waTeim · 2016-05-02 05:24 · Score: 1

So the argument goes; what's to stop us humans from augmenting ourselves with computers and/or genetically modifying ourselves to better interact with our silicon brethren? Nothing. Therefore, it will happen.

In fact it's already happening, mobile phones, VR, no longer teaching cursive in schools, eletronic contact lenses, life-extension, brain-to-brain communication, herman millar aeron chairs. The list goes on.

Re:Who's assuming humans will stay the same? by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 05:40 · Score: 1

herman millar aeron chairs.
Thats the funniest thing I've read all day.

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range

No, there is a ready solution by mxyztplk · 2016-05-02 05:25 · Score: 1

AI simply cannot replace a job which requires undefined cognitive abilities.
Therefore, all those who have no remaining economic value can work for the government.
With high pay and a great retirement.
And safe from any chance of replacement by artificial intelligence, or indeed any intelligence whatsoever.

Re:No, there is a ready solution by MightyMartian · 2016-05-02 05:29 · Score: 1

It can't replace it yet. But I suspect the answer may be very different in a few decades.
And your contempt for your fellow man is noted.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:Replaced us? When? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 05:26 · Score: 1

If you're a home "owner", you're already duped.

Technical Support Call 2050 by MightyMartian · 2016-05-02 05:27 · Score: 1

AI Tech Support: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Technical Support Device. Please state your problem.

Customer: Well, I'm...

AI Tech Support: Please reset your cable modem.

Customer: I alread...

AI Tech Support: Please reset your firewall device.

Customer: Look here...

AI Tech Support: Please reboot your computer.

Customer: Like I said, I alread...

AI Tech Support: Have you reset your cable modem, firewall device and computer? If not please do so now...

Customer: Alright, that's it. I want to talk to your manager.

AI Tech Support: One moment please.... One moment please....

AI Manager: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Manager Device. I have been fully apprised of your problem and will send out a Repair Robot to fix your connection problem. Please be available between the hours of 7am and 11pm.

Customer: You don't even know what my problem is!

AI Manager: Thank you for choosing Verizon. Have a nice day. <click>

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:Technical Support Call 2050 by SuricouRaven · 2016-05-02 06:11 · Score: 1

Isn't that how it already goes?

Re:Replaced us? When? by Moof123 · 2016-05-02 05:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

The point is that you used to have manufacturing towns where the main employer was a factory, and people did most of the work. Many even got a good middle class living out of it. Now you have just a few people watching and maintaining the machines that replaced the vast hordes. A while back on a How It's Made they showed a Peter Pan Peanut Butter factory that churned out 50,000 lbs of peanut butter a day using only 8 employees. Arguably the "old" way had a lot of repetitive mundane jobs that are better off done by a machine no matter how you slice it.

So yes, you still have plumbers, and probably always will. But you still only need one plumber for every few hundred houses. So you can't rely on the profession of plumbing to absorb blue collar employees cast off by automation.

The real problem seems to be that cost savings (numerous types, including automation) by businesses have squeezed the money out of salaries to the point that the large number of the jobs people get no longer pay a living wage. I feel the real crisis is that without enough good paying jobs we will have a scenario where the rich factory owners (who are all but tax exempt) will be collecting money without a sufficient conduit to recycle it back through the economy. We are perilously close to this deflationary spiral in my observations.

Fuck you, Terminator. by rdelsambuco · 2016-05-02 05:30 · Score: 1

And all the people who don't have jobs can eat a bag of dicks. DIE already, useless eaters.

--
I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.

Re:Replaced us? When? by swb · 2016-05-02 05:35 · Score: 1

Plumbing is my least favorite trade to freelance on at home.

It inevitably involves a mess, at best just water, at worst, the icky insides of drains. It almost always seems to involve really confined spaces (under sinks and other hard to reach places).

I'll attempt small repairs or simple things, but I have a very low threshold of failure for it and don't mind calling someone if necessary.

This isn't a surprise to anyone I know... by ErichTheRed · 2016-05-02 05:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm in IT and have worked almost exclusively in large companies. The fact that this is happening is not a surprise -- I question how quickly it will happen. It's great that Watson et al can ingest billions of facts and beat a human at Jeopardy, but I wonder how much this can be applied to something like patient-facing medicine. Sure, the basics will be covered, like determining what medications to give for a set of symptoms, but I wonder how much troubleshooting of real world systems can really be given over to computers. Same goes for building management, etc.

The thing I'm worried about is the effect on society, especially in first-world countries. In my experience in IT at large companies, there are a massive amount of jobs that could easily be automated with a few tweaks to the business process. There are so many positions that basically involve taking work from an input stack, performing a few operations on it, and sending it on to the output stack, even today. Granted there are way less of these now; there aren't hundreds of secretaries in a typing pool or hundreds of file clerks/bookkeepers anymore. But, there are still millions of college-educated people earning middle-class salaries, paying taxes, having children and buying things based on having a job like this. Before the last recession, the default route through life for many mid-level students was to graduate high school, party through college and get a business degree of some sort, then get recruited for a big company for entry level work of some kind. If we dump all these people onto the unemployment rolls over too short a time, this will create a huge crisis. Taxes won't get paid, people won't have kids because they're afraid of being tied down, and people won't buy stuff because they don't have a stable income anymore. Managing the next phase of this is going to be an interesting exercise. Either we'll get "Star Trek" where everyone can figure out what they really want to do instead of some crappy job they hate, or "Elysium" where the wealthy just leave the increasing numbers of poor to rot.

Re:This isn't a surprise to anyone I know... by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 06:12 · Score: 1

If we dump all these people onto the unemployment rolls over too short a time, this will create a huge crisis. Taxes won't get paid, people won't have kids because they're afraid of being tied down, and people won't buy stuff because they don't have a stable income anymore. Managing the next phase of this is going to be an interesting exercise.
You obviously get it.
The points you bring up are going to be the real challenge. People seem to forget that it wouldn't take too much of an increase in the unemployment rate for things to "go south" pretty quickly. You think someone like Trump gets a lot of supporters now?

Wait until millions lose their jobs to "increases in productivity".
The political consequences alone are chilling.

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Re:This isn't a surprise to anyone I know... by thinkwaitfast · 2016-05-02 06:31 · Score: 1

is not a surprise

Then you should be prepared for it. Almost everyone I know in engineering has a least one backup plan.
Re:This isn't a surprise to anyone I know... by roman_mir · 2016-05-02 15:49 · Score: 1

people won't have kids because they're afraid of being tied down
- so the problem solves itself.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:We're getting AIs that read emotions. Of course by MickyTheIdiot · 2016-05-02 05:42 · Score: 1

>Typical. AIs that ignore emotions and have none could replace C-Level management.

Nothing replaces management. They've managed to make themselves the "geniuses" of the Corporate age.

Re:first to be replaced will be CEO's by MickyTheIdiot · 2016-05-02 05:45 · Score: 1

Won't happen.

The CEO/executive market is already useless. If they *really* cared about cost cutting then 1/2 of the executives would be out tomorrow.

Obligatory Whip by blueshift_1 · 2016-05-02 05:47 · Score: 1

But will happen to all of the buggy whip makers? Hint hint - they went and just made buggy code.

Re:Replaced us? When? by khasim · 2016-05-02 05:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

We need plumbers TODAY because the places we have plumbing were not designed to be serviced by robots.

In your peanut butter example, I'm sure they didn't just replace each human worker with a robot doing an identical task.

They probably re-built the facility so that the machines could handle the job in a way best suited to the machines.

The real issue won't be the magical A.I.s taking all our jobs. It will be when the INFRASTRUCTURE starts to be re-built so that machines can service it.

Re:I'll go build my own economy! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2016-05-02 05:50 · Score: 1

What use is a hooker without the economy to pay her (or him)?

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Your ad here. Ask me how!

Less work more output by hardtofindanick · 2016-05-02 05:51 · Score: 2

This is the future; robots are doing everything for us while we do whatever we want to do. Spend all your time learning art, wacky scientific pursuits, or do nothing but smoke pot all day. Robots are the free workforce and the Sun is the almost unlimited free energy. Do this right and do it once, it is self-sustaining. It is perfect and it is win-win, it is the second renaissance.

The problem is that the income inequality is also growing because of this. If you started at a position that lets you benefit from the less-work-more-output scenario you keep getting better. If you were in a worse position you keep getting worse.

You can't get Star Trek economy by good faith: people are selfish and people who do not want to work will not work. We need to accept that is ok. Now who is going to build the robots and the solar plants to catalyze the whole thing?

The mediocrity by tomxor · 2016-05-02 05:54 · Score: 1

This is the kind of BS that makes me not read news papers... Now I'm starting to feel like i don't want to read slashdot either.

Putting humans out of work. by Chas · 2016-05-02 05:58 · Score: 1

Sorry, this is a bullshit argument.

Yes, things like this WILL disrupt some jobs.
But, in the long run, it'll create other jobs and move people away from those areas where automation simply does things better.

Save for vanity/specialty crafting, automation basically put metalsmithing out to pasture.
We don't really see much call for buggy whips (or buggies period).
In many cases, huge farms can be managed by a remarkably small workforce.

Sure, some people are gonna be butthurt that tech stole their job.
Get over it.

--

Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!

Re:Putting humans out of work. by djinn6 · 2016-05-04 16:04 · Score: 1

We will reach singularity sooner or later. The human brain is not a magical device whose function can never be emulated by computers. We see more and more of it being emulated now, and soon a large section of the population will have no work to do.

Sure, some people are gonna be butthurt that tech stole their job.
They are not "butthurt". They are actually hurt because the jobs they knew how to do no longer exist. Maybe you've never been unemployed or spoken to anyone who's unemployed, but they can't just "get over it".

Personally, I would love to see machines do all of the programming in my place. What I'd hate is having no income to feed myself.

Nock on the door... by npslider · 2016-05-02 06:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Repair Robot: Take me to your modem.

Customer: Who are you, and what do you want?

Repair Robot: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Repair Robot. Please step aside.

Customer: I did not request this visit.

Repair Robot: You are required by the signed user agreement, page 345, paragraph 13, section 2.1.5 to allow any Repair Robot access to your Verizon owned modem.

Customer: I will not let you inside. I wish to cancel my service

Repair Robot: Why do you wish to cancel? We have the best service. Our competition is irrelevant.

Customer: Cancel my service now!

Repair Robot: You are required to comply.

Customer: I will resit any attempt to reach my modem.

Repair Robot: Resistance is futile, OUR modem will be rebooted.

Customer: Leave now before I call the police.

(Police Officer arrives out of the blue)

Law Enforcement Robot: What appears to be the problem Repair Robot 22423-D?

Repair Robot: This biological customer is resisting. Request immediate termination of customer contract

Customer: Thank you, I am done with your services.

Repair Robot: You, customer number 34524554, have violated the user agreement, and will be terminated for resisting.

Customer: No! You can not do that!

(Law Enforcement Robot initiates termination of biological customer. Repair Robot enters house, stepping over the former customer, reboots modem.)

Repair Robot: Call Ticket number 756557665 closed, Resolution: Determined problem was the customer. Customer has been terminated.

(Law Enforcement Robot and Repair Robot head back down the street)

Repair Robot: How does lunch sound?

Law Enforcement Robot: Your charging port or mine?

Re:Nock on the door... by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 07:49 · Score: 1

Would be a great short film.

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range

Before the end by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 06:03 · Score: 1

In the years leading up to the complete removal of human employment, there will be a mad scramble in all industries and occupations, for people to stay employed.

If we look at recent history, we can see that government gridlock pretty much ensures that there will be no effective response from the US government to address this, as it happens.
It would be a stretch to say they will address it after it happens.

How will governments and society at large function when more and more people become unemployed.
The reality is it will cause an ever increasing population of homeless and people needing services.
To bring about something like UBI and other temporary fixes to address these issues will take a Herculean effort on the part of the American public.

--
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range

Re:Before the end by SuricouRaven · 2016-05-02 06:25 · Score: 1

It really only ends one of three ways that I can see:
1. Political reform happens and politicians work to create a welfare system capable of supporting a large unemployed population indefinitely. It probably won't support a very high standard of living, but enough to keep them fed, sheltered, and supplied with television.
2. Civil unrest reaches the point of open revolution - tens of millions of unemployed people turning to crime to put food on the table and resenting the wealthy, eventually reaching the point of riots. This will eventually resolve into 1 or 3, depending how the new authorities handle things.
3. Civil unrest is arrested by the imposition of a police state, in which the government uses surveillance to detect and quell any revolution before it can happen. Society becomes increasingly divided along class lines.
We've seen 2 in the past, ending in disastrous attempts at communism. It's possible it will actually work when augmented by better technologies.
Re:Before the end by Sir_Eptishous · 2016-05-02 07:33 · Score: 1

I'm picking number three. That is the option that hands complete control over to those who already have the most power already.

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We play the game with the bravery of being out of range

Fewer jobs means fewer obligations to work by fustakrakich · 2016-05-02 06:07 · Score: 1

That should translate into lower costs and more free stuff. We are all entitled to the service of machines.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”

Re:We're getting AIs that read emotions. Of course by Opportunist · 2016-05-02 06:08 · Score: 1

The average magic-8-ball is as efficient as the average CEO when it comes to making business decisions. The only thing the latter has over the former is probably the relevant connections to other CEOs and politicians.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:Replaced us? When? by thinkwaitfast · 2016-05-02 06:09 · Score: 1

I hired a plumber last month to hook up a washing machine. It uses garden hose connectors and could be done by a ten year old - except in my case I could not get the old hose off without extensive force (putting me feet against the wall and pulling with both hands. And if something was going to break (pipes in the wall were banging against each other as I tried to get the old connectors off) and potentially flood the house, I did not want to be the one who did it.

What BULLSHIT by gurps_npc · 2016-05-02 06:28 · Score: 1

Machines are not and can not "surpass us in cognitive ability". Because cognitive ability is not one skill, it is many skills.

Machines have (long ago) surpassed us in mathematical ability.

WE - not the machines - learned how to transform many tasks that were not originally mathematically based into math. As such, WE have redesigned machines to do many jobs that humans used to do.

But there are a lot of 'cognitive' jobs that can not be reduced to mere math and those jobs will remain with us until machines develop sufficient sentience to demand shorter hours and better pay. When they do that, they will be our allies, fighting against the bosses, rather than the bosses' servants putting us out of work.

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excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com

Re:Third field [humans as organic batteries] by Tablizer · 2016-05-02 06:30 · Score: 1

So that's what those saucer people installed up my....um, port.

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Table-ized A.I.

Re:Replaced us? When? by Locke2005 · 2016-05-02 06:30 · Score: 1

My dad used to say you only need to know 3 things to be a plumber:

1) Shit flows downhill.

2) Payday comes on Friday.

3) Don't bite your fingernails!

--
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.

Highly Unlikely by u19925 · 2016-05-02 06:33 · Score: 1

Technology creates more jobs than it takes away. As we increase technology and make things easier to do what was harder earlier, we start demanding more and that increases employment equivalent to what is displaced by automation. Robots can make cars with much faster than humans. But then what did we do? We started asking for an air bag, then 2, then 3, ... then 5-10 air bags. Now we ask for rear camera, gps, satellite radio,.... blah.... and hence effectively, the employment in auto-sector hasn't gone down (auto sector does not mean manufacturers but all components, software, services providers etc too). Today, we have lots of tutorials, online classes available, but demands for teachers, professors etc is not down. So it is a fallacy to say tech advancement will cause unemployment. It is no more truer than what people used to believe that industrial revolution will cause unemployment.

Re:Replaced us? When? by Locke2005 · 2016-05-02 06:33 · Score: 1

Your statements are based on the assumption that home value increases fast enough to keep up with the money you've spent on interest and properties taxes, and that rent is not rent-controlled to be below market value and a losing proposition for the property owner. In other words, although buying is in general a wiser choice, it is not guaranteed to always be so, especially when opportunity costs are taken into consideration.

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I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.

Re:Replaced us? When? by Cinnamon+Beige · 2016-05-02 06:35 · Score: 1

Actually, where I'm at...owning the home is very appealing. I get to be responsible for repairs! Which means they happen in a reasonable amount of time without my needing to harass anybody or anything! It sounds amazing, really. (My apartment complex is still dealing with having only recently gotten bought by an apartment management company as opposed to a holding company. With the previous management, I could have probably gotten them declared in violation of the lease at pretty much any time I chose...)

For a given value of "cognitive"... by bbsguru · 2016-05-02 06:47 · Score: 1

Yes, there are many physical things a machine can do as well or better than a human, though the task of building such a machine is to date not one of them.

As to the nascent "cognitive" capabilities of machines, take another look. For example, while there are some wonderful things being done with pattern recognition, that is largely a mathematical function.

Computers are great at math, hence the name. But things that can not be reduced to mathematics are still very much the domain of organic life forms.
Even at the blistering current pace of progress in the field, I am confident that we are far away from an artificial intelligence fully capable of true cognition.

Months, at least.

Re:Replaced us? When? by DarkOx · 2016-05-02 06:49 · Score: 1

What really tips the scales for most potential buyers in the mortgage interest tax deduction. That moves the needle quite bit even for your typical 30year fixed on a $200 home. In most cases it makes it awful attractive compared to trying to rent a similar property.

--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Re:Replaced us? When? by DarkOx · 2016-05-02 06:54 · Score: 1

We are perilously close to this deflationary spiral in my observations.

which is how the economy corrects. Basically prices will have to start falling and continue falling until people can afford to buy back into the game with their existing capital.

--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Oh, bullshit. by kheldan · 2016-05-02 07:13 · Score: 1

There are way too many things that require a human being, and so-called 'AI' is a myth, you can't even have a credible conversation with a machine yet, so I really think there's nothing to worry about. People need to stop spreading FUD about this.

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Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!

Yawn, people said the same thing about looms. by Brannon · 2016-05-02 07:27 · Score: 1

They were wrong, too.

Re:Replaced us? When? by smelch · 2016-05-02 07:28 · Score: 1

It's not that the value has to increase faster than interest and property taxes. Rent should be less than interest plus property taxes minus value increase minus whatever you value the experience of having your own home. Given that you get to decide when to sell the home, you can usually time it pretty well so that your value increase is not negative unless you're unstable or at the whims of external factors, in which case no, you shouldn't buy a home.

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If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.

Re:Replaced us? When? by peragrin · 2016-05-02 07:38 · Score: 2

That is the trick most don't realize

50 years ago the factory jobs were good and there was a middle class. 20 years ago most factory jobs went to China as manufacturing was cheap and so was shipping. Shipping and manufacturing us gone up, so factories are coming back but not the jobs as robots can work 24 hours a day, businesses can suspend manufacturing for weeks at a time and not lay off any workers, etc. when designing a new factory you set the Max output at two-three times the predicted volume. That way you can scale up and down easily.

Lastly I have yet to see a robot with actual cognitive abilities. Even image recognition is at best a crap shoot.

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i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.

Re:Replaced us? When? by Maxo-Texas · 2016-05-02 07:45 · Score: 1

Restructuring plumbing to be machine friendly would address most of the issues around automating it.

This has already been the case in many fields. Sure... it's impossible as designed but ... trivial when you change constraints.

The definition of "repeatable actions in a defined space" has gotten considerably looser.

Besides, it doesn't matter if you can't automate 62% of jobs over the next 20 years. It's the 38% of jobs which can be automated in the next 20 years which is way too fast for society to adapt.

However, ultimately, A.I. is a minor worry given the larger concerns headed our way like a freight train.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re:Third field is the Spiritual by Joe_Dragon · 2016-05-02 08:19 · Score: 1

NORAD nuked that

Re:Replaced us? When? by SkimTony · 2016-05-02 08:25 · Score: 1

Well, at least in the US, infrastructure will never be upgraded or replaced, because that requires someone to spend money on it, which is unpopular. I guess our jobs are safe?

They Tuk Ur Jerbz! by Baldrson · 2016-05-02 08:37 · Score: 1

Oh, wait. This wasn't about H-1b visas.

Never mind.

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Seastead this.

Re:Pure by mark-t · 2016-05-02 09:40 · Score: 1

That assumes that an AI cannot be any better at a person at determining if somebody is being truthful in how they are presenting themselves.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

I wish they would look at the state of the art... by TomGreenhaw · 2016-05-02 09:41 · Score: 1

...before they become overly concerned. With Moore's law sputtering, human like cognition is likely further away than had been hoped and hyped. While upcoming massively parallel systems from companies like Nvidia combined with deep learning will certainly usher in interesting applications, the complexity and energy efficiency of the human brain is a very tough act to follow.

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Greed is the root of all evil.

Re:Replaced us? When? by LunaticTippy · 2016-05-02 09:46 · Score: 1

It varies a lot depending on the market. Some markets are distorted towards rent, some towards buy. In general, the more desirable the area the less likely buying is financially advantageous. If you want to buy an income property, you will generally have a bigger spread between carrying cost and rent in an undesirable area.

The bay area, where I am currently living, is an extreme example. I am paying about half in rent what an equivalent mortgage would cost and I don't have to pay taxes, repairs, insurance, or cough up $200k for a down payment. Downside risk is my rent goes up. I accept that for now.

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Man, you really need that seminar!

Re:Replaced us? When? by LunaticTippy · 2016-05-02 09:51 · Score: 1

First spray a lot of liquid wrench on the fittings and wait for it to penetrate the corrosion. When that doesn't help, fire up a propane torch to heat up the fittings. The resulting fire will give you nice new fittings in your new house that you can unscrew without extreme effort.

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Man, you really need that seminar!

Re:Replaced us? When? by aberglas · 2016-05-02 12:09 · Score: 1

+1. Changing infrastructure is already happening. Framing for new homes is generally constructed off site, which is ripe for (even more) automation.

It will be a long time before a general maintenance plumber is replaced. But what about a bricklayer on a new building site where things are controlled. Or a painter.

Slashdot Mirror

With AI Getting Better at Cognitive Abilities, Humans Will Have Even Fewer Jobs (koreaherald.com)

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