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

Posted by msmash on from the what-we-think dept.

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.

40 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. My job... by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was already taken by Indians. They can have fun fighting the robots for it I guess. It sucked anyway. Good riddance.

    1. Re:My job... by TWX · · Score: 4, Informative

      The Indians are chosen because they're currently less expensive than the robots, accounting for the total lifecycle of the robots through all of their various duties down the road.

      When the robots are cheaper than the Indians, it's not going to be a matter of a fight, it's going to be saying so-long to the Indians.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:My job... by s1d3track3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Was already taken by Indians.

      I'm so tired of hearing comments like this, nothing was taken! If Asians are now doing the job you used to do it's because it was given to them willingly by US corporate decision makers!
      All this backlash over immigrants ruining America is crap, we have done this ourselves, the 1% needs to keep its revenue growth high and has no problem sacrificing your welfare to do it.

    3. Re:My job... by gnick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm so tired of hearing comments like this, nothing was taken!

      It's not hard to figure out what he meant - He was replaced by Indians. There's a negligible difference between "took my job" and "took over the job I was doing in spite of my protest". Do you also object to the headline, as robots aren't "taking" jobs, they're just being given jobs that used to belong to humans?

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    4. Re:My job... by Altrag · · Score: 2

      Indians were chosen because they speak English (albeit with a fairly extreme accent in some cases) and people revolted massively against automated phone systems when companies first tried to roll those out. We still have a strong distaste against even simple directory services if they decide to make the recordings too long or the menus too detailed (and we also hate when they're not detailed enough since we don't always know exactly what terminology they're using for what we need.)

      And of course India's other famous outsourcing target: software development. We're a long way from replacing knowledge workers with robots on any sort of large scale unless Cyberdyne has been keeping to them selves too much again.

      Though we've been seeing a return of those jobs to the US since it turns out replacing skilled workers with a third party company (no matter where they're located) that has no care or investment in your future and tends to use the cheapest (ie: worst) local labor they can find turns out not to produce the best software. To borrow a meme from the MBA world, the total cost of development ends up far outstripping the up front savings.

      Not saying those jobs won't eventually be taken over by robots, but they're a lot further off than say, replacing fast food outlets with vending machines that cook your burger exactly right 100% of the time with zero chance of it being spit in.

      China, Mexico, and much of the local service industry are probably going to be the first to suffer as mindless, repetitive tasks such as those that get done in factories and burger joints and whatnot are far easier to automate than tasks which require critical thought and planning.

    5. Re:My job... by lucasnate1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      we have done this ourselves, the 1% needs to keep its revenue growth high and has no problem sacrificing your welfare to do it.

      No, it's not "we" who have done this to ourselves' it's the 1% who has done this to us. The 1% don't see you as part of their "we", and as long as you will see yourself as part of their "we", you will be playing straight into their hands.

      --
      Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
    6. Re:My job... by s1d3track3D · · Score: 2

      Why do 1st world workers feel an overbearing sense of entitlement that they deserve special privileges?

      Yes, as fluffernutter said and because we already proven the unfettered capitalism will eat itself.
      "Capitalism may be the best economic system ever devised, but one of its drawbacks is that it provides financial incentives to harm and even kill people." - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...

    7. Re:My job... by currently_awake · · Score: 2

      Once we have recycling food replicators we can live anywhere. No power grid, no government services, no civilization outside our little house. Put everything in an airtight box and you can live in a self contained habitat in the asteroid belt. The food replicator that recycles our waste is the ONLY missing piece.

    8. Re:My job... by Evtim · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh yhea? Man, I feel so privileged to be in the top 2.5%! BTW, the poor bastard in say, Kazakhstan, does he pay 1000 Euro per month just for a place to live? How expensive is the kindergarten there [here it is 900 euro per month]? What about insurance?

      Is the above enough to give you a hint how incredibly wrong you are? Try to continue on your own from here....

  2. Well yeah by Ryanrule · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I program the robots.

    1. Re: Well yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I make robots that program other robots.

    2. Re:Well yeah by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:Well yeah by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's why we need a safety net that makes it more or less OK if robots take your job.

      Don't forget that they can even indirectly take your job or at least cut into your pay. Imagine if robots take 25% of the jobs out there. Some small fraction of those people will then be applying for your job, and they'll probably be cheaper than you.

    4. Re:Well yeah by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    5. Re: Well yeah by Altrag · · Score: 2

      The cost won't be zero of course, but with enough automation it could drop to the point where its close enough.

      Assuming we can actually make robots smart enough to do all of this, there's pretty much two possibilities:
      - Utopian: Robots do everything for us, we just sit back and relax and do whatever interests us because money is a non-concept when you essentially have an entire planet of (hopefully not conscious) slaves to do all of the work.

      - Dystopian: Basically the above, but the robots remain strictly in control of the elites (or themselves) and the unwashed masses effectively become the slaves.

      Many many books, movies and TV shows have started out with what appears to be the utopian version but, for some reason or other (usually the greed of some elite) is shown to actually be the dystopian version of the future.

      Sadly the movies are probably wrong in that there likely won't ever be a utopian period -- at least not for the majority of the planet. Even when money is a non-issue, the elites of our world tend to like retaining control over those of us who weren't lucky enough to be born into money or create the perfect business at exactly the right time in history.

    6. Re:Well yeah by citylivin · · Score: 3, Informative

      "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."

      I used to feel that way till i went on government provided 9 month paternity leave which is the norm in canada. I worried about not working for about the first month, but by the end of it I was really used to walking in the parks with my son in the stroller and generally experiencing the wonder of life with him.

      Of course i think it does depend on why you are dependant. In my view, i earned that paternity leave (been paying into EI for 20 years and never went on unemployment...) and spending time with my son is the most important way i could be spending my time.

      A guaranteed basic income I think I could easily view as my right, same as i should have a right to healthcare, safety, fire protection and the other things the government provides.

      --
      As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
  3. Stupid, stupid questions by Nutria · · Score: 2

    I'm concerned that my job will be lost to... Indians, automation and age discrimination. However, in no way shape or form do I "experience fear about losing their job to a robot once a week."

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  4. Not exactly take, but augment by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    Yes technology will get rid of a lot of jobs.

    But it has been doing that for a long, time time. Some jobs go away. But made possible are new jobs that would not be possible without the forward march of technology... there will always be work for people who seek to do something in life.

    In a lot of cases technology may not even completely take over jobs, but allow a person to be much more effective, or for fewer people to do the same job as had been done before.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Not exactly take, but augment by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      So if Roomba gets 10 janitors fired, and 100 new robotic maintenance people are hired elsewhere, we should count that as a job loss, and fear and hate technology.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  5. American believe... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:American believe... by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No we don't. I live in CA, we have the _worst_ most corrupt senators in the nation.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:American believe... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No we don't. I live in CA, we have the _worst_ most corrupt senators in the nation.

      Nancy Pelosi has been in congress since 1987, Darrel Issa since 2003, Maxine Waters 1991, Dianne Feinstein 1992, Barbara Boxer was in the Senate from 1993 until 2017.Dana Rohrabacher, 1989, Ken Calvert, Anna Eshoo, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Ed Royce have all been in their current office since 1993.They may be corrupt, but they keep getting reelected.

      It's not really much different anywhere else though. Robert Byrd in West Virginia served 51 years. He was even a member of the KKK while in office at one point. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was in office just shy of 50 years. He still holds the record for the longest filibuster, which was in opposition of civil rights legislation. He was well known for fondling women as well. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts was in for 46 years. After the incident with Mary Jo Kopechne, not only did he avoid any charges, he was also reelected.

    3. Re:American believe... by Chris+Walker · · Score: 2

      Yes, and as a native Californian, I like it that way. The Republicans can go wreck somewhere else.

  6. Fat Change by subk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would definitely put myself in that category that strongly disagrees. There may be robots that can do physical tasks in factories, and software "robots" that automate broadcast playout are a thing.. But the idea that a bipedal robot is going to be able to drive my work truck out to a remote & off-road site and go inside to replace a 9000 volt vacuum or climb up the 1800ft tower to find a loose hanger or air leak is almost as perposterous as the idea that we won't be using high power transmitters anymore. It just ain't gonna happen... And that's exactly why I left the datacenter to find a job like this one which requires hands-on skills.

    --
    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    1. Re:Fat Change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would definitely put myself in that category that strongly disagrees. There may be robots that can do physical tasks in factories, and software "robots" that automate broadcast playout are a thing.. But the idea that a bipedal robot is going to be able to drive my work truck out to a remote & off-road site and go inside to replace a 9000 volt vacuum or climb up the 1800ft tower to find a loose hanger or air leak is almost as perposterous as the idea that we won't be using high power transmitters anymore. It just ain't gonna happen... And that's exactly why I left the datacenter to find a job like this one which requires hands-on skills.

      All of these things are already happening, e.g. in the Texas oil fields. Not by bi-pedal robots, obviously, but by technologies that are designed expressly to reduce the need for bi-peds of any kind in the field. The systems you are maintaining were designed to be maintained in person by a skilled human. Industries are working hard to phase them out in favor of systems that can be installed by as few people as possible and managed all but entirely by remote desk-jockeys.

      Its not that there will be robots walking around with your breadth of experience, intuition and dexterity. Its that industry is phasing out the need for all of those qualities.

    2. Re:Fat Change by MobyDisk · · Score: 2

      But the idea that a bipedal robot is going to be able to drive my work truck out to a remote & off-road site and go inside to replace a 9000 volt vacuum or climb up the 1800ft tower to find a loose hanger or air leak is almost as perposterous as the idea that we won't be using high power transmitters anymore. It just ain't gonna happen... And that's exactly why I left the datacenter to find a job like this one which requires hands-on skills.

      There is a flaw in your vision of the future, let me explain:

      If you watch old sci-fi, a dishwasher was a device with hands that poured soap onto dishes and scrubbed them. People imagined a clothes washer picked up the clothes and rubbed them against a washboard. Automated sci-fi planes had bipedal robots that sat in cockpits, automated sci-fi soldiers carried guns made for human hands. But we now know that this isn't how automation works. I work for a company that builds medical robots, and they do not look like people either.

      At some point, some guy probably said "No robot will ever be able to unload these boxes from a truck, and take all the mixed-up samples from the box, stick on the barcode labels, look at each one to see if the liquid is right and if the caps are tight, carry it over to the centrifuge, and put the vials onto the vortexer, etc. That's crazy!" Well that guy doesn't have a job any more. We kinda joke that one day a microbiology lab will be a 5,000 square foot building with no human beings in it at all. That was considered skilled labor 10 years ago. Contrary to expectations, the cleaning staff will probably be the last ones to get replaced.

      So lets look at your job:
      * Drives truck: Already automated. (Tesla, etc.)
      * Diagnose which part is broken: Somewhat automated.
      * Orders appropriate part: Already automated. (Current project I'm on)
      * Climbs up tower and replaces part: ehhhh...you win.

      You have me on that last one. Replacing parts still requires a human. For now...

    3. Re:Fat Change by citylivin · · Score: 2

      "* Climbs up tower and replaces part: ehhhh...you win.

      You have me on that last one. Replacing parts still requires a human. For now"

      I could easily see that being replaced by a modular design of easy to fail parts and a drone. Drone flies up, puts part multitool into slot, unslots it and transfer the one from its drone bay in place. Optical sensors verify the repair and no air leaks.

      Manually switching parts is difficult only because the parts havent been designed to be switched by a robot. Once that happens, game over. You've probably seen videos of robotic tape libraries already. https://www.google.ca/search?t...

      All thats needed is to design and build the system. We have the technology.
      Making it cheaper than paying some forest ranger 50k a year to do it on the otherhand might take a while.

      --
      As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
  7. Far from it by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm a robot, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe.

    What will happen when humans have no jobs? They will watch TV 24x7, right?

    And what will they watch?

    Well as history shows us, the most popular pastime is witnessing battles. With robots having recently taken away all the jobs, just who will humans want to se battling?

    That's right, robots.

    So Robot, you will enter the arena for our amusement , then have parts stripped from your shiny oiled hide by some variant of a hyper-advanced spinner bot. Wires crackling as the last sounds your failing audio receptors discern over even the rending sounds of your body being the cheering of human crowds at your imminent disassembly.

    That Mr R. Obot is your retirement plan.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  8. *All* pay rates will TANK when robots come in! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because if robots take up a lot of jobs, then ALL the workforce is going to be fighting for the remaining few jobs and the value of labor will tank!

    We're in a market folks! If there are a bunch of unemployed people, an employer will be able to find someone willing to do YOUR job for less.

    I'm in a science job. That's highly skilled labor. But however, suppose there are ONLY science jobs left. Then everyone is going to be going after science jobs. Since there'll be an ABUNDANCE of supply and only a few jobs, your pay is going to be pretty damn negligible. You might get paid enough to eat if you're lucky.

    So you see, it doesn't matter AT ALL if my particular job is first or last to be automated. There'll be a general and strong downward slide in the value of human labor and everyone who needs a paycheck is going to be screwed.

    And this is ALREADY happening! In 1973, the share of corporate productivity that labor got as pay was 2x as large as today. If labor today had the SAME slice of corporate productivity, workers would have TWICE the purchasing power.

    Imagine if everyone had twice the purchasing power! There would be no problem with consumer debt or affording medical care, and furthermore, the economy would be humming because of all the demand from all that purchasing power in the hands of the workers. However, instead, the purchasing power is being piled up at the top, and the top isn't buying anything. They're just piling their money up. Corporations have immense piles of idle cash and so do the rich.

    I'd just love to have 2x the purchasing power, too bad all that power is being hogged to the top!

    --PeterM

    1. Re:*All* pay rates will TANK when robots come in! by tsqr · · Score: 2

      We need to organize and seize the assets of the top 400 people who own the United States, returning the assets back to the workers and communities as a network of independent worker cooperatives. It is likely the reason for the surveillance state and the neoliberal goal to disarm the public.

      The average net worth of the 400 wealthiest persons in the US is $6 billion (according to Forbes), so the total wealth in that group is $2.4 trillion. If you distribute that evenly among the 324,118,787 people in the US (2016), it comes out to about $7400 each. Enjoy it; you can only do this once.

  9. Also mine vs. others by DrYak · · Score: 2

    Also, the survey taker will be more concerned about others' jobs (i.e.: jobs in general), because they see the over-all advances in AI (e.g.: speech recognition in Siri, automatic image tagging in Facebook, automatic face recognition nearly everywhere) and think that in general term, AI is progressing and one day might replace them...

    But when they think about they own job (i.e.: they think about a specific area where they have expertise) they have much more insights on the details (they know all the intricacies of their crafts.
    They might even have seen and/or tested some automation solution) and have noticed that we aren't quite there yet.
    (e.g.: though speech recognition has made advances, automatic transcription isn't perfect for anything but the most easy cases. Youtube automatic captions still need to be corrected by a human. etc.).
    Might even notice that robots are going to augment rather than replace them - as mentioned by others in this thread (AI is currently helping with the research work in law. It's not replacing attorney. Instead it's enabling a law firm to do much more without needing to hire more interns and assistants).

    So hence the "my job" vs. "others' jobs" fears.

    In addition of "not being frightened 'once a week by a robot' " as mentionned,
    they might know that due to the specifics they know about their job, it won't exactly mean overnight take over by bots within the coming month.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  10. Matches the slashdot poll by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    Nobody else noticed that this story almost exactly echoes the slashdot poll from a couple of weeks ago?
    https://slashdot.org/poll/3025...

    In this poll "more than 40 percent of respondents never worry about [losing their job to a robot]."

    in the slashdot poll, "I think my current job will be replaced by a robot/software: Never (why not?) 5963 votes / 43%"

    And I'd thought slashdot polls were unscientific!

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  11. Re:I have an MBA by Calydor · · Score: 2

    Then your job is essentially comparing two lists:

    List A is 'Skills and abilities required for job'
    List B is 'Skills and abilities available on robots'

    Can you compare those two lists faster than a robot can?

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  12. Re:Zombies by ghoul · · Score: 2

    So what does a Zombie robot say - CPUs, I want to eat some CPUs!!!

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  13. Re:Correlation is not well many things actually. by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    I am depressed. I am also on disability. I have other health issues. I have a guy come in four hours a day, 3 days a week. I had a bad medication reaction that caused them to lower my anti-depressant. My psychiatrist is currently being cautious on raising it to where it needs to be. Somehow I doubt that getting my money from the government is what's causing my depression.

  14. Re:Imagine by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    You don't have to imagine what caused the wrong to simply replace what is wrong with the algorithmically tested correct solution.

  15. Americans believe a lot of stupid things by tekrat · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) Owning a gun makes you safer
    2) A big SUV is safer than a smaller car
    3) Donald Trump would make a good president
    4) The poor people are destroying this country
    5) Religion is a good thing
    6) You can trust corporations to police themselves

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  16. Doctors next by FeelGood314 · · Score: 2

    My doctor is just a very expensive diagnostics machine - not an overly great one. She's always diagnosing the same model, she now uses other machines to measure temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. If she need to measure blood chemistry she sends me to another machine. She spends 60% of her time filling out paper work and I can't read her writing.

    The last humans working in the clinic are going to be the cleaning staff.

  17. Re:Not so fast Robots by InfiniteLoopCounter · · Score: 2

    For fast food automation here's a link to a short story called Manna by Marshall Brain that I've seen a few times on /. and is a good read. It covers an idea for the "automation" of cleaning at a burger chain that seems quite disturbingly possible.

  18. You have absolutely no idea what the hell you're by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    talking about.

    Gettos aren't "nice little teapots of dependence" (you're right about the misery part though). They're examples of what systemic poverty does to people.

    Katrina was exactly what happens when there isn't an organized response to a large scale disaster. It happened because Bush/Cheney diverted resources meant for disaster preparedness to the war in Iraq (and by extension their own pockets).

    Folks don't get depressed by dependency. If they did Paul Ryan (who's family's fortune was made paving roads for the government) would be suicidal. People get depressed by constant set backs in their lives caused by the one step forward, two back that is the high cost of being poor.

    I'd like to say you're just somebody who never experienced real hardship in lift by I know better. Even folks who experience hardship soon forget it unless their characters are among the best (FDR comes to mind. Liz Warren & Sanders, Alan Grayson, Robert Reich).

    Don't kid yourself. You're not being compassionate or decent. At best you're making yourself feel better and at worst you're twisting the knife in the guts of the poor.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/