Americans Believe Robots Will Take Everyone Else's Job, But Theirs Will Be Safe, Study Says (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a CNBC report: You may accept, by now, that robots will take over lots of jobs currently held by human workers. But you probably believe they won't be taking yours. Though other industries are in danger, your position is safe. That's according to a report released by LivePerson, a cloud-based messaging company which surveyed 2,000 U.S.-based consumers online in January. Their researchers find that only three percent of respondents say they experience fear about losing their job to a robot once a week. By contrast, more than 40 percent of respondents never worry about it. And a whopping 65 percent of respondents either strongly or somewhat agree that other industries will suffer because of automation, but theirs will be fine.

Comments

American believe...

[The Grim Reefer]

Americans also believe that everyone one in Congress is a lying, cheating, worthless waste of oxygen, except for their own congressman. (s)he's doing a fantastic job and needs to be kept in office for the rest of their natural life.

Hey, that gives me an idea. We should replace all congressmen with robots. Except mine, of course.

Re:Well yeah

[MightyYar]

Here's the thing: it doesn't matter.

If robots can take my job, then they will take my job. Sure, you can push for some local protectionism. Maybe even slow things down so that the transition happens after I retire or die. But at the end of the day, some society somewhere in the world will go with the more competitive option and my job will be history. Avoiding technical progress is working great for the Amish, but not everyone is so lucky to be ensconced by a benevolent, protective society.

Re:Well yeah

[MightyYar]

I have no problem with a safety net in principle. The thing is, humans have a knack for being douchebags ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h using systems for a purpose other than designed, resulting in an outcome that is other than desired. Unless the desired outcome is long-term total government dependence, safety nets need to be very carefully designed and implemented.

In case you can't pick up on it, I definitely do not favor government dependence. People seem to be depressed as hell when they are dependent. In a few cases, we see where dependence leads to total helplessness in the face of government failure, like in Katrina. Ghettos are also nice little teapots of dependence and misery.