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