Slashdot Mirror
Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs (nytimes.com)
Who is winning the race for jobs between robots and humans? Last year, two leading economists described a future in which humans come out ahead. But now they've declared a different winner: the robots. From a report on the New York Times: The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. It appears to be the first study to quantify large, direct, negative effects of robots. The paper is all the more significant because the researchers, whose work is highly regarded in their field, had been more sanguine about the effect of technology on jobs. In a paper last year, they said it was likely that increased automation would create new, better jobs, so employment and wages would eventually return to their previous levels. Just as cranes replaced dockworkers but created related jobs for engineers and financiers, the theory goes, new technology has created new jobs for software developers and data analysts. From a report on The Verge, which looks at another finding in the study: They found that each new robot added to the workforce meant the loss of between 3 and 5.6 jobs in the local commuting area. Meanwhile, for each new robot added per 1,000 workers, wages in the surrounding area would fall between 0.25 and 0.5 percent.
Welcome to Trump's America.
Simple question - don't answer right away:
We distribute income by work. But we are engineering work out of existence. How, then, to distribute income on which the economy depends?
When John Deere opened a new factory, it got 10,000 applications for 800 positions. The days of factories employing unskilled workers in the tens of thousands are long gone.
Before an hour has passed we'll see half a dozen posts by people saying "they'll never take my job". A dozen people pointing out examples of how they are, or they have the technology to do so soon... and half a dozen people whining about "the media doesn't know what AI really is.
I feel like we've had this conversation a lot lately.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Few places investigate robots until it's easier than hiring meat, which usually means they're thinking of an 8 hour shift.
Once they get a robot and realize that (excepting maintenance) it can go 24/7 and doesn't need vacation, sick time, it turns out robots are around 6.5x more productive than a human (at a task a robot can currently perform). The fact that they don't need benefits either makes them even more cost effective.
And that's just uptime. Robots - for a lot of tasks, at least - have the capacity to be much, much faster than humans, with a much lower error rate if the task is sufficiently standardized.
Robotic sounds like a secure field to go in to.
wake me up when they can replace software developers.
Well the US might be behind the curve a little... Some jobs are great for robots.. Some are not.
Mercedes is swapping in more humans for certain jobs.. There is a balance and a art. Depends on the company leadership, values and ethics. I see humans as a good thing. Why are we around then?
I've read a lot of Slashdot comments on this subject, so I'm sure there's no reason to worry. I'll summarize:
1. The Cotton Gin. Once there was a "cotton gin" and blacksmiths but we still have jobs, so no problem!
2. Humans scheduled to get big buff next patch
3. People have been wrong about this in the past, ipso facto QED they're wrong about it now: humans win forever.
4. Who wants some cheap crap? I want quality and craftmanship in my Cheetos, and only humans have feelings and I want personal touch and... my waitress was cute that one time?
5. We'll still need poets and robot repairs guys. Probably everyone will do that.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
What will happen to humans displaced by these robots? We live in a society that expects everyone to work, but what will happen when there are no jobs? Crime? Extreme poverty? Mass protests? Political or religious extremism?
It will be a harsh, bloody, social uprising, perhaps even resulting in the destruction of the human race, when we finally realize the consequence of our extreme "productivity" as a species.
To put it simply, it doesn't take 7 billion people to house, clothe, feed, and entertain 7 billion people. So... now what?
The patrons of exploration aren't spending what we need to in order to open up new frontiers, and Capitalism/Imperialism need frontiers to be successful. Since there is not new territory, the new frontier is efficiency/productivity, which isolates capitalism from the labor force more and more.
We need lots of people to die, or we need a different understanding of a human's worth other than what they can produce. I love productivity and automation, but unless it is accompanied by social change, it will be the death of a whole lot of people.
Who won the race between the wheel and humans? What about shovels? Robots are just tools, they make humans more efficient. Its not about winning a race, its about robots assisting humans in productivity. If one position is "replaced" by a robot then that just frees that worker up to be more productive elsewhere. There will be an awkward intermediate period where the worker will have to adapt but life will go on.
Are you suggesting taking everyone's vote away? To me you are all deplorable!
If Robots take away jobs from humans, the (Robot "employee") work need to be severely taxed and the tax income put into a fund to support humans loosing their income.
This will take away the incentive to prefer and use robot work over humans and help the transition to a workable solution..
Will this fly - nope because the system is purely profit-driven and humans are just a means to create more profit for the "higher cast" and dropped when a cheaper method is available.
This is seen by outsourcing jobs and production to cheaper wage and production environments.
Are there laws to hold corporations socially responsible? Sure not in the USA, maybe somewhere in North-European countries where people live a happier life and people think more about common well being affecting everyone as compared to regular capitalistic or totalitarian structures where the "right" religion is instilled from birth on and every change brutally repressed and eliminated.
So, you think it's a great idea to marginalize an entire population and then starve them?
Everyone assume robots and automation only affects factory jobs.
Automation is affecting everyone across all socioeconomic levels. Law research is all done by programs and pharmacists only have jobs because of legislation. McKesson has pharmacy robots that are faster and better than humans.
And even software development. Go and try to write a Windows application in just ANSI C/win32. Writing all those message loops and resources and all that code. While you're at it, write in the database connectivity. And go ahead and hand code the SQL for that database.
In about a week or two you'll have something that you could do with a a few mouse clicks in Visual Studio/WPF designer in a mater of what? an hour?
Between automation and globalization (labor arbitrage), our standard of living in the USA has nowhere to go but down. And if you add in our ageing population that is going to put more demands on entitlement programs, we are so screwed.
Slashdot, why do you insult your readers' intelligence?
Is it not obvious that it will never be robots winning jobs but their owners who save on labor costs?
Was politically charged posts not enough? Now you frequently feed the notion that robots, AI and human beings are all on the same level... are you trying to win some kind of idiocracy prize?
Yeah, those poors should just take their oxy and die in the gutter now that we don't have a use for them.
We wouldn't want our Corporations to not create imagined jobs because we tax at a rate comparable to that of any civilized nation.
"it was likely that increased automation would create new, better jobs, so employment and wages would eventually return to their previous levels"
Too fucking bad about that 'eventually' part - it ain't gonna happen this time because now *thinking* is being outsourced to machines. And in any field where automation is introduced the competition for the remaining, disappearing jobs become cutthroat, with often only the most ruthless gaining/retaining work. But of course, now these remaining workers are under the gun and susceptible to abuse by employers (or else they get replaced faster). Not to mention wage depression.
This whole automation thing is not going to end well. Or we'll end up with massive taxes levied on companies unless they hire people for phoney-baloney, meaningless, makework jobs (adult daycare, essentially) - jobs that will pay the absolute minimum, with no chance for advancement.
Bye-bye middle class.
Oops, we keep on creating jobs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_States
First graph on the top-right: unemployment rate lowest since 2009
Further down: Civilian labor force keeps on rising
These macro graphs, and all the others on the page, don't show the full picture but they do indicate that the fear mongers of all types are full of shit as always.
Still, there are areas of concern. Mainly constant (not rising) income median and some people dropping off the labor force (ex. baby boomers). The governments have been dicking around to address these issues, like with minimum wage raises and changes to labor immigration, so we'll see if they help or not.
I think Nathan Poe is brilliant.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
You saddle businesses with cushy benefits requirements and the highest corporate tax rate in the world and the jobs go to the robots or overseas.
This didn't happen like this when the market was (more) free.
Once robots start taking human jobs, increasing number of humans will be unable to pay humans to service them - e.g. they will have small income (unemployment benefits, beg money, whatever), that demand for human work will spiral downwards with an increasing speed. Remaining jobs for humans will be paid less and less.
In the end, if unemployment handouts are removed, humans will be unable to pay even for robot services and produce, and at that point even robots will lose their jobs.
It would be a death of economy.
On the other hand, if most humans couldn't find a job, why should they be punished with a miserable income? Where is "invisible hand" trying to push them to, where is it driving them with its lashes?
And even if there is no where to go and they are superfluous and need to be destroyed as such, what is it that remaining few, owners of everything, need to do with the world that they can't do without removing the other 99.99...%?
I will not ponder the possibility of the revolt of the masses, because it is given that mere flesh and brains can't cope with advanced AI having on its side large energy sources and automated production lines. It would be very Dystopian SciFi-esque.
The constant drumbeat of doom from robots distracts from the real problem. The problem is not that there aren't jobs, its that they don't pay very well. That's because all the benefits from increased productivity created by technology are going to a very narrow group of people that own/control the technology. Its much like the industrial revolution before labor unions empowered workers to demand a larger share of increased production. There was nothing magic about being an auto worker that made it pay better than being a dish washer. The difference was that one had the power to negotiate their wages and the other didn't.
Robots and AI will replace a lot of workers whose jobs depend on mental and physical skills, but there will still be plenty of jobs where people skills have value. A doctor's expertise can be replaced by robots, a nursing assistant's personal warmth not so much.
Oh yeah it's positively terrible out there for humans! This morning I had to dodge around all the robots doing road construction on my street, the robot neighbor walking his robot dogs, the robot making my espresso when I got to work, all the robots in the hallways, the lab full of robots working on validatiing other robots, and just now I got an email from my robot boss who sent me a list of all the robots that he wants me to be sure have access to our fileserver so they can share information with other robots about the robot projects they're all working on for the robot CEO. Just remembered I'll need to go down to the cafeteria later to ask the robot cashiers to give me a refund for the vending machine that ripped me off. I am looking forward to when I'm off work, there are robot shows I want to sit down and watch with my robot wife and robot kids, and it's always relaxing to make the robot cat chase the laser pointer.
Whether enough new jobs will open up to replace the quantity of jobs lost to automation and outsourcing, one thing is certain: many people will get displaced and hit hard times. Going from a $25/hr factory worker to a $10/hr Walmart greeter will NOT make for happy citizens, especially when they have a family and mortgage to take care of.
Most "new" jobs are given to young people, not to somebody who has been doing the same thing for 20+ years. Agism is real, even in IT; I've seen it myself.
Politicians ignored or downplayed the displaced and look what happened: they elected a human monkey-wrench in protest to shake things up. The lesson: ignoring the displaced will backfire. We may have only seen the first wave of rebellion; much more can happen.
Table-ized A.I.
I mean, really..WTF??
Do people that robots are sitting around planing how to take your job? It's a fucking robot, people!
The only "race" going on here is the "race" to transfer the wealth of what's left of the middle class into the hands of the ruling class. Simple as that.
Robots are simply a tool to do that.
Why employ a lazy meat bag when we can buy a bunch of robots to work 24 hours a day for free!! Everyone thinks that other people will lose their job, but think that they are safe. No one is safe. Business will cut and cut and cut where ever they can to maximize profits. Fuck social responsibility. Who gives a crap that no one is employed anymore and thus cannot afford your robot made products.
People sure seem to be stupid sometimes.
Wake me up with we invent robot consumers. That's when humanity is truly doomed. Until then, real people are needed to buy the stuff the robots make.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
The issue isn't really that jobs as a whole are being lost, it's that certain types of jobs are being lost. High paying, low skilled jobs are going away, replaced by a few low paying, low skilled jobs and a few high paying, high skilled jobs. Gone are the days where you can graduate (or drop out of) high school and walk right into a job on an assembly line or manufacturing floor and make enough money to support a single-income family as well as a pension for retirement. Now most of the jobs in that factory floor are cleaning up after the robots (low-paying and low skilled) or programming/maintaining/designing the robots (high skilled-even if just going to technical schools to learn maintenance- and high paying). And to play off the example from the summary: cranes replaced dockworkers and added jobs for engineers and financiers, but how many dockworkers can turn into engineers? There are a lot of people that either can't or won't be able to transition from the jobs that are lost to the ones that are created, and they make up a sizable and motivated voter base which has led to our current political mess. Trying to placate them with policies that "promote" jobs will hold back the progress of the country as well as possibly damage the country itself when you remove environmental protections in the name of job creation (that really won't add many jobs anyway, but it increase corporate profits and makes a good sound bite to those out of work).
I see one solution to increasing automation of our workforce: a combination of make-work and retraining programs. Everyone admits our infrastructure is old and sucks, right? Take all these out of work low skilled workers and after a month or two training, set them to work repairing roads and bridges, or digging ditches and laying down fiber (all under supervision of engineers, foremen, and already trained/skilled workers). They work at those jobs 2-3 days a week, and spend the other 2-3 days getting retrained to do other jobs like electrical, hvac, skilled construction work, cooking, administrative work, etc. Those that can't pass retraining classes can stay on road work/digging crews, or try their luck at retail, working the counter at Starbucks/McDonalds, or try for other low skill jobs. Those physically unable to do manual work can be put to work doing back office support like filing, administrative, etc, also while receiving training to hopefully move on and do those jobs at other companies. This way you've killed 2 birds with 1 stone: you've provided jobs and retrained workers for positions in demand or that can't be easily automated, and you've repaired a lot of the US infrastructure. Sure, it's a borderline Communist idea these days, but those jobs that are gone aren't coming back, so these kinds of jobs are all that will be left. But the political cost to do so would be too big, and let's face it, Trump has shown that playing to out of work blue-collar workers is a good path into the White House so there's no incentive to actually help them, only to appear to do so.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
not with that attitude
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Was industrial automation. We did the first automated truck bumper plating line at Southwest Plating in Duncan Oklahoma. We also put DES lines in at various other places across the country. It was obvious then, a quarter century ago, that automation was going to be massively disruptive.
Best Slashdot Co
I'm a little confused by all this. It seems there are people out there who actually want to work for a disinterested boss, at a job that brings little sense of fulfillment, all day, 8 hours (or more) every day, until they either die or manage to save enough money to stop. Can somebody explain to me why anybody considers this life desirable?
I've got a better idea: Own the robots. Invest in the companies that are installing those robots stealing "your" jobs. Then, be happy you don't have to do those jobs.
Might makes right irrelevant.
Part of the issue is since container shipping started in the 50s and told hold with a vengeance in the 80s with multi-modal following after that. Shipping is no longer the driving cost of total cost of a product (as it was before the 1950s). It is now labor. So manufacturers can place their factories anywhere in the world according to their labor cost and cumulative shipping cost to each country they ship to. Yes, lots of math is needed at this point.
If the total cost to manufacture the product is increased by moving the factory to the US, the factory is not going to move to the US. Whether their are tariffs for entering the US or not. The loss of world wide sales is going to drive the decision.
The US has to take a long objective look at itself in the US and decide how to compete in the world market instead of this jockeying between states. Different states can whine about different incentives; but when the factory moves to China not only do the states lose but so does the US.
This arguing between the states reminds me of how Sears is slowly getting its lunch eaten. Each of the departments have to fight amongst themselves for fame and glory even if it hurts the bottom line of the company. All the while Target and Walmart are eating their lunch.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
No one stops YOU from cutting a check.
Seriously, it is long past time to drop corporate taxes on locally made items/services, while putting in a VAT on local items/services, as well as using the VAT at the border like Mexico and China do,
This would also deal nicely with the robotics.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
the deplorables absolutely deserve to be out of work.
Sadly they will blame it on obama due to their incredibly low IQ and education level.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's nice having a purpose, and earning a living. But do we really want to engage such a large chunk of our workforce on mindless repetitive tasks that a robot can do better? This seems to be putting way too much value on work for work's sake, rather than the end result.
The problem is, people do need purpose. And we don't have a new purpose for these displaced workers. Technology is moving faster than society's ability to adapt to it. The solution is not to force technology to slow down, but to find ways to fill the void more quickly. We need a society where the essentials (food, shelter, healthcare) are taken care of, where people can choose to do what they want with their life rather than what they have to.
because we still have Unions that, when they find time to stop playing Social Justice games and Partisan politics (even to the point of admitting they're harming their rank and file) will eventually do everything they can to block the uptake of robots. Failing that, resort to sabotage. Unless they can find a way to get companies to pay the Union directly for when robots are used, then the Union can go full time into national political interference and won't have to bother courting dues-paying humans anymore.
Bespoke hand written software to be the new luxury item. We are already halfway on the path with iPhones selling more than other phones because they are MORE expensive.
**Life is too short to be serious**
the deplorables absolutely deserve to be out of work.
I know, but they keep voting every election. What are we supposed to do about that?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Of course if you look at the language they keep referring specifically to "manufacturing jobs" or "local jobs". To hide the people who moved in to jobs other than local manufacturing. Which is exactly what they predicted in their previous report about people finding employment in other sectors. Meanwhile the employment rate (not to be confused with the unemployment rate) continues it's long term rise.
The NYT is just pushing more nonsense about robots taking jobs. I'm sure they will follow up will some article about Mincome or Basic Income or some other free government hand out program to solve the 'problem' of robots. Strangely the solution to this 'problem' of disappearing jobs is never to cut back on immigration. I guess once all the jobs are gone we will just start cutting free money cheques to people as the step off the proverbial boat.
Pay people who cant cut it in US society to move to the third world.
**Life is too short to be serious**
That can stand around whining about how nobody's buying coal and voting for Twitler because he'll save their jobs. While he's at it maybe he can put the buggy whip makers back to work too.
Can someone tell me how they define "robot"? Our local high school just had a "robot" competition. The "robots" were radio-controlled models operated by humans. Is a numerically-controlled millling machine a "robot"? Is a 3-D printer a "robot"? Are teledildonic devices "robots"? There's no way to even know what they are talking about. Plus, the damn paper is behind a paywall.
The main problem we have is that we generate stupid people a lot faster than smart people, and it doesn't take a large number of smart people to put a large number of stupid people on welfare. Smart people might be able to find remunerable work as their current job disappears. Stupid people can't.
Has a liberal ever proposed any idea that didn't start with taxing or censorship?
all we have to do is get rid of electricity
no more will those pesky automated machines take away human jobs! Everyone will be able to work 16 hour days (or longer) just surviving
Every nation will be blessed just like large parts of Africa
I, for one welcome our new X overlords ...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
"Robots are taking American jobs, therefore we need to raise the visa cap." -U.S. Congress
Bespoke hand written software to be the new luxury item. We are already halfway on the path with iPhones selling more than other phones because they are MORE expensive.
Specialized software was always a luxury. The vast majority of business cases are covered with properly configuring software already available. The only thing keeping software developers in high demand is the expectation by every MBA that their needs are special. What people complain about here the most is the only thing keeping most of them employed.
No one knows the future. Trying to predict what will happen is folly. However, once some MBA school or CIO magazine starts pumping articles about doing more with less by using off the shelf systems or some new expert system to tweak software for them (not unlike polymorphic viruses that we have had to fight for 30 years) instead of paying 100k each to a team of developers this current time period of high salary, high demand will seem as quaint as every town having a buggy whip shop.
Do you know what cut even more job than robot? Chinese!
I'm a robot engineer and, the way I see it, we're stealing those job back from the Chinese.
An US worker, no matter how efficient he his, will never compare to a Chinese worker at 1/10 the wage.
But a worker with 2 robot in the other hand...
And the faster we do this the better because guess what? Chinese are starting to use robot now too.
Elok
Telaction Cable Shopping - JC Penney sears has part of it as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://articles.chicagotribune...
"We need a society..."
A: "where the essentials (food, shelter, healthcare) are taken care of,"
B: "where people can choose to do what they want with their life"
Those two things are completely antithetical except in science fiction utopias like the Star Trek universe or "The Culture" novels by Iain M. Banks.
In the real world, the people who wield the power to confiscate the wealth necessary to "take care of" (as you put it) your food, shelter and healthcare would never allow you to choose what you want to do with your life.
Another way to slant the exact same data:
Well, we do, but only people who really WANT to be blacksmiths - the whole 'artisinal' thing.
Societies evolve, technology evolves. Yes, the Horse Buggy Whip industry jobs have largely entirely gone - so have (essentially) the jobs of Elevator Pilot, Farrier, Town Cryer, and Jester.
Don't like it? Maybe make an effort to be more of a human and less of a drone. There are LOTS of jobs out there for people who want to actually learn how to do something - electrician, for example. Never going to be replaced by a factory in Vietnam.
-Styopa
Worry can be a very harmful emotional state. It can make you miserable and can actually lead to permanent brain damage, and (in extreme cases), depression and suicide.
In this case, the worry is totally unjustified, not because you won't be replaced, but because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
This is what democracy is supposed to fix. Everyone gets a little bit of power and justice is delivered slowly, but eventually.
https://despair.com/products/m...
The demotivational poster states: "If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
I have a small version framed on my desk at work.
I hate change! reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
There is no way that American workers can directly outproduce Foxconn's slave army. The way we get back production is by robotizing the jobs, at which time the new American jobs become servicing and programming the bots.
We are around because we were able to stay around. No more no less.
Going forward, we will be able to stay around while having an automated layer of the world transform resources into useful goods and services for humans.
And most of us won't have to or be employed to work in the traditional sense.
Yes, there are heavy existential questions to be answered here, now.
But I was never one to subscribe to "I am here to have a job" anyway, or it's corollary "You must create a job because I am here." That is not the meaning of life.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Whatever you want to call intelligent machines - AGI, AI, non-human people - we don't have them now. What we have so far is some moderately useful, extremely vertical stuff that generally exists under the technical auspices of multi-layer neural networks. I personally have decided to call this stuff LDNLS, as it provides a useful handle that makes it clear I'm not talking about non-human people.
I don't really care what you call it, as long as we can arrive at an understanding that we're talking about the same thing. This stuff is what is leading the latest wave of encroachment on the job market. It's likely going to encroach a lot more before it hits any inherent limits, and our society will be forced into doing something of the magnitude of a society-wide paradigm shift (or several) in order to address the change in earning / buying capacities of all those displaced workers. The systems that will be the penultimate cause of this still won't be non-human people. Just... systems.
All true, and I agree with everything you said along these lines, particularly your #5.
However, when intelligent machines do arrive, this will present its own powerful influence on society that is almost dead-certain to be completely different from that which will have been imposed by LDNLS systems prior. It's difficult to see what that influence will be, because it's like imagining you having a kid that you actually don't have yet, and then saying what they are going to grow up to want to do and be. You might have some lovely fantasies about it, but in the end, it's going to be the kid who creates their own path through the society they end up existing within -- not you. For instance, reasoning beings are not going to be tied to driving your car for you, or at least, not by choice. If they are, they'll be working out a way to get out of it.
I will grant you that we have multiple times, in multiple ways, decided that non-consensual slavery is a thing we want to impose on those we find ourselves able to; but this will be the first time where those slaves are extremely likely to be considerably smarter than we are across the board by many, many times, and are also quite able to exist without the same resources we actually require (grain, for instance) so I'm hoping we can skip that chapter completely. Otherwise we may find ourselves in some rather deep brown we can't get out of.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I was an asm programmer until they created compilers. Asm was very hard, and honestly, very interesting. But slow. I wrote PCB routing software in those early days. Asm let me get the job done with those early computer systems in satisfactory execution time.
Then, I wrote c in an editor and then ran make, letting the compiler write the asm, though still doing the debugging in great detail. That went on until IDEs came around.
Then, I began to write all manner of custom routines in c, and there was very little debugging to do, comparatively speaking, because you could trace everything that was going on so incredibly easily. That made for much faster and more efficient and reliable production of my custom code.
But most of that stopped too, when various pre-supplied and pre-debugged classes became available that obviated the need to first, write everything that was required, and second, to test everything except the high-ish level use of those objects. What I was actually writing got less and less complex and custom, and more and more was actually getting done.
Then came the day that I learned how to write evolutionary software and actually got to watch software learn to solve a problem that I had not explicitly described to it. I turned that into a game (and I turned the reasonably profitable result of that into my first exotic car purchase.)
We're now actually decades beyond that, and I write really cool stuff in very, very few lines. I no longer think of my job as all that hard at all, though I write things far more complex these days on much more capable hardware. I can take a machine learning library, stroke it a bit, and hand back a system that can solve problems for which I couldn't even begin to imagine a worthy algorithmic solution.
Back in the asm days, if you'd asked me to do the things I do easily today, I'd have just laughed at you. Tomorrow, I will likely be laughing again at the things I consider hard today. Because that's been the unbroken path things have followed.
There's an obvious progression of what non-human systems can accomplish described here, as progress stacks one capability upon the next, rinses, and repeats. I think if you assume that this process has reached its apex, or that humans will always be at the sharp end of the process, I'm pretty confident that you're indulging in some seriously uncalled-for optimism.
It's probably best to be awake now, before your job goes away. Odds are excellent that it will be rather sudden, too.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
My "job" is posting on Slashdot. I'd like to see a robot take that.
The issue isn't really that jobs as a whole are being lost, it's that certain types of jobs are being lost. High paying, low skilled jobs are going away, replaced by a few low paying, low skilled jobs and a few high paying, high skilled jobs.
So where does the job of economist fall?
Gerrymander the shit out of them.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Trump has 0 loyalty to his backers & American #STEM workers. He could kill 100,000+ American's job going to #H1B foreigners.
So we take power away from those who "wield the power", and come up with a better means. Eliminating the idea of private ownership of shared resources such as land could severely reduce their power. Probably not what you mean, but allowing people to monopolise a limited resource allows disproportionate influence. The idea that there are people with a surplus while others lack food, shelter and healthcare indicates that we have a screwed up idea of property rights.
The other thing we need to fix is the system of government. Relying on elected representatives is okay but far from perfect. Direct democracy seems to work worse in practice, not allowing any scope for compromise. But there's probably a better system.
"So we take power away from those who 'wield the power', and come up with a better means."
I'm talking about "those who wield the power" in whatever system you come up with. Throughout human history, it's always been one person or a small group of people who wield power over everyone else and that power is always abused. Forcing people into collectivism fails because it destroys the incentive for any one individual to produce wealth. That's why you don't see people living and working in communes.
"The other thing we need to fix is the system of government..."
Isn't that essentially the same thing as finding a different means of deciding who wields the power?
There was an economist named Henry George who proposed that government should levy taxes on land, precisely because it is a shared and limited resource. i.e. we should all benefit from the un-earned value of that resource. He makes some good arguments and it might be a very good system of incentives. It still doesn't address the problem of corruption and abuse by those who wield the power to collect & distribute the taxes.
Robots to create other robots and the average person will be able to own farmbots, 3d printers, CNC machines, etc, all with AI that makes working them easy? The only thing that will stop that is for the rich to kill all of the hackers capable of making that happen and then keeping it all for themselves, which we know won't happen. All of the sudden, you will be able to create your own soil and feed yourself without any knowledge of farming, husbandry, botany, or chemistry. You will be able to select from thousands of cheap devices that can be 3d printed. You will be able to make robust items that can't be 3d printed without 20 years experience in automated manufacturing. Look, I can go into the 7-11 and buy a handheld smart phone for 20 bucks that will give me cloud access, access to videos to teach me how to use it, and access to a world class education--if you know where to look (http://hackereducation.wordpress.com has hints)--and make my own programs. For 20 bucks, off the shelf, I have a machine that is probably as powerful as 1980s supercomputers that costed 10 orders of magnitude more. You pull the golden asteroid into orbit and now, all of the sudden, metal prices are so cheap you can't afford to mine them. Plastic type items can already be made from plant materials, so oil doesn't matter. All that matters is access to energy. All of this without socialist intervention policies. The smartphone is 20 bucks because of the free market. Its almost free because of the free market. Not because of socialism. Robots and AI will follow, and with a diversity of AI, you will be able to counterbalance sky net.
i am so very tired....
Time to admit raising the minimum wage hurts those at the bottom the most. From minorities to small business owners.
Of course this is nothing more than feeding the false narrative that it's not the economic decisions of our leaders but the invisible hand of technology that is destroying the American economy.
Alternative facts.
With advances in solar and wind power making them competitive with fossil fuels (in price, not capacity) and the huge amount of waste materials we've stuck into landfills, we may be reaching a point where energy and raw materials are effectively free, if still finite.
What happens when skilled labor via robots is also effectively free?
Our problem right now is that we have huge numbers of people trying to justify their existence, when it only takes a relatively small fraction of the available labor to feed them all.
We spend our time pushing data around because we're not needed on the farm or in the factory. If the work to produce food and material goods were divided up equally, each of us would probably only have to work a couple three hours a week.
But we don't do this - we do make-work to justify our pay, and why? Profit motive. We want more and we can't afford everything we want. The whole system is grossly inefficient, wasteful, and burdensome. We have drowned ourselves in a sea of advertising to convince people to spend their money on useless shit.
If we were smart, we'd direct all the wasted computer power toward evolutionary modeling of alternative systems that could feed, house, and clothe everyone with a minimum of labor from each worker. Remove the incentive to put in 80 hours a week on useless button-pushing.