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Only 13 Percent of Americans Are Scared Robots Will Take Their Jobs, Gallup Poll Shows (cnbc.com)
According to the results of a Gallup poll released mid-August, most employed U.S. adults aren't too worried about technology eliminating their jobs. Only 13 percent of Americans are fearful that tech will eradicate their work opportunities in the near future, according to the poll. Workers are relatively more concerned about immediate issues like wages and benefits. CNBC reports: This corresponds with another recent Gallup survey finding that about one in eight workers, or 13 percent of Americans, also believe it's likely they will lose their jobs due to new technology, automation, robots or AI in the next five years. While the survey reflects a generally confident American workforce, Monster career expert Vicki Salemi tells CNBC Make It that people should not become complacent.
"Employees need to think of themselves as replaceable in a way that propels them into action," Salemi says, "so they can focus on continuously learning and sharpening their skills." In the meantime, Americans can look to what the tech giants are saying. On the contrary, Salemi emphasizes that Americans shouldn't be paranoid and lose sleep every night. Rather, they should think about AI "from a place of power." "If your job does start to get automated, you'll already have a game plan and solid skill set to back you up for your next career move," she says. If you find yourself in the 13 percent of Americans worried about losing their jobs to robots, Salemi says you can "robot-proof" your job through networking. "Always be on top of your game, she says. "If your industry is becoming more digitally focused, get schooled on specific skills. Instead of being lax about your career, always stay ahead of the curve, keep your resume in circulation, ask yourself where the industry is headed and most importantly where you and your skills fit in."
"Employees need to think of themselves as replaceable in a way that propels them into action," Salemi says, "so they can focus on continuously learning and sharpening their skills." In the meantime, Americans can look to what the tech giants are saying. On the contrary, Salemi emphasizes that Americans shouldn't be paranoid and lose sleep every night. Rather, they should think about AI "from a place of power." "If your job does start to get automated, you'll already have a game plan and solid skill set to back you up for your next career move," she says. If you find yourself in the 13 percent of Americans worried about losing their jobs to robots, Salemi says you can "robot-proof" your job through networking. "Always be on top of your game, she says. "If your industry is becoming more digitally focused, get schooled on specific skills. Instead of being lax about your career, always stay ahead of the curve, keep your resume in circulation, ask yourself where the industry is headed and most importantly where you and your skills fit in."
If I had mod points they'd be yours.
The goal of all of this shit should be to eliminate as much work as possible for the good of everyone but our economic system will not allow for that.
Our technological evolution has far outpaced our societal evolution and I mean globally not just America.
I think the problem isn't so much a robot taking a carpentry job. Rather, robots are going to chase hobby carpenters out of their higher paying and more steady office jobs thus causing them to fall back on carpentry, thus giving you ten times more competition and putting the wage through the floor.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
86% of Americans are either not paying attention or not very bright. Ok, 85% (somebody's got to oil the robots).
Jokes aside the problem with robotic automation is that it'll chip away at the job market. It's not that your job's going away, it's your buddies. And now you're buddy is gunning for your job. For less pay. A lot less pay.
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The problem with this argument is that wealth isn't created. It's like energy conservation -- it's a fixed supply of money that just keeps getting shifted around. If I pay someone $10, I have $10 less and they have $10 more, but the only way wealth can be created or destroyed is by changing the money supply. In previous generations in the US, this fixed-size pie was more evenly divided for a few reasons;
- High corporate taxes meant that companies avoided them by paying workers more and giving them more generous benefits, because there was a point where it made more sense to distribute the next dollar as an expense rather than declare it as profit.
- Workers had more rights and a greater voice in their salaries and working conditions. Now it's a race to the bottom, which is going to go into warp speed as people claw and kill each other for the last available jobs at any wage.
- There were fewer ways for high net worth individuals and companies to hide their income. Now, there are way more tax loopholes and offshore tax havens to park profits and keep them from being taxed or used domestically.
- In general, wealth is being hoarded. Rich people buy the occasional yacht or mansion, but these purchases don't add up to the same effect as employing a bunch of people in a business.
- Globalization means that businesses can just pick the cheapest country this year and offshore all their operations for a fraction of what they would pay workers in their home country, further accelerating the race to the bottom.
Short of increasing or decreasing the money supply by manipulating interest rates or buying/selling debt, how do you create wealth? It's definitely a fixed pie.
What will you do when universal basic income causes hyperinflation
Do you mean the way that trillions in QE caused the 0% hyperinflation we have today?
Gains in productivity cause deflation. For price stability, we need monetary expansion to offset that.
The problem with this argument is that wealth isn't created. It's like energy conservation
If that were true, we would all still be in the stone age.
If I pay someone $10, I have $10 less and they have $10 more, but the only way wealth can be created or destroyed is by changing the money supply.
Nonsense. This would only be true if things were worth the same to everyone. If someone pays $5 for my app, I am $5 richer since that app had a marginal value of $0 to me (I can make as many copies as I want). The buyer is also richer, since that app is worth more than $5 to him, or he wouldn't have bought it.
Such changes can happen suddenly.
It is impossible until it isn't. Then it becomes possible very quickly.
The types of learning AI we're seeing being deployed now would at the very minimum reduce the number of blue collar workers it would take to do the same job. "Manage by exception rather than the rule." As a result, many jobs could potentially be outsourced or offloaded to AI vendors, requiring a handful of people to oversee the machines.
Just because you can't envision blue collar jobs being done by machines, doesn't mean somebody else can't figure out how to automate a portion when a new piece of technology becomes available to solve or reduce the cost of another critical part. 80% to 90% of your job can be automated.
Our economy has been moving towards more efficient and lower cost production, with the intent of removing costly First World workers from the equation.