Slashdot Mirror
Bankers Publicly Embracing Robots Are Privately Fearing Job Cuts (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Within the upper echelons of many financial firms, there's a lot of soul searching as executives prepare to roll out a new generation of technology. Publicly, they're upbeat, predicting machines will perform almost all repetitive tasks, freeing humans to focus on more valuable pursuits. Privately, many confide to peers, consultants and sometimes journalists that they're worried about what will happen to their staffs -- and what to tell them. There's also uncertainty. Maybe it's all overblown, executives say, because the tech will be hard to implement and humans will find new roles. Or perhaps it's the beginning of the end for legions of professionals in one of the world's most lucrative fields. Can jobs held by office-dwelling millionaires disappear like those on factory floors? The result, is that employees aren't getting a clear message on what's to come.
For a rosy scenario, look to McKinsey & Co. In July, the consulting firm published a report estimating machines are ready to assume roughly a third of the work now performed by banks' rank and file. The authors framed it as positive: People will have more time to tend to clients, conduct research or brainstorm ideas. So far, it noted, firms at the forefront aren't slashing jobs. At JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the most tech-savvy banks, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon predicted in June that his workforce will more likely grow than shrink over the next 20 years. Technology may displace workers, he's said, but it also creates opportunities. Yet in interviews, about a dozen Wall Street executives and consultants responsible for deploying technologies -- and steeped in their capabilities -- were more bearish on humans. Machines will take over task after task, they said, and banks simply won't need nearly as many people.
For a rosy scenario, look to McKinsey & Co. In July, the consulting firm published a report estimating machines are ready to assume roughly a third of the work now performed by banks' rank and file. The authors framed it as positive: People will have more time to tend to clients, conduct research or brainstorm ideas. So far, it noted, firms at the forefront aren't slashing jobs. At JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the most tech-savvy banks, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon predicted in June that his workforce will more likely grow than shrink over the next 20 years. Technology may displace workers, he's said, but it also creates opportunities. Yet in interviews, about a dozen Wall Street executives and consultants responsible for deploying technologies -- and steeped in their capabilities -- were more bearish on humans. Machines will take over task after task, they said, and banks simply won't need nearly as many people.
Do the elite pay the underclass a basic income for nothing other than peaceful coexistence, or do they preemptively put down the inevitable rebellion against their intended genocide?
I could see it going either way, but I know which way I find more likely.
We're headed to a dystopian future where robots run the planet and humans are useful for nothing more than battery-like heat sources to power the computer overlords.
It all depends on who owns the land when the s*** hits the fan.
If enough land is held by the working class, they can survive. If there isn't enough land usable by the working class, that could be a real problem.
Their fear isn't what is going to happen when they have to fire their rank and file.
The real fear is what happens when the american public opens their eyes to this farce when they no longer can get any jobs and start rioting against the bankers and system
I like the comment about more time to "conduct research or brainstorm ideas" Yeah, on your own time, at home, while you're collecting unemployment and job searching.
I used to work for a major regional finance company in their IT department, after almost three years there I finally made it down to one of the processing floors. What a disaster, something like 200 people on this floor, all overweight "lifers" with at least 18" deep of nick-knacks on their desk, they did... something? One lady I helped, every 10th check did not have the company logo on it. Her job was to print checks for brokers. Somehow the 20 programmers up on the IT floor hadn't gotten around to automating her job yet. The other 199 people on this floor had similarly mind-numbing jobs that were likely 2-10 lines of scripting away from being automated away. I suspect as these people get hit by busses and/or die of clogged arteries, their jobs will be automated. But 200 jobs is roughly 10% of that company, an entire floor of a skyscraper, poof, gone. They'll likely be out-competed by a much smaller company that can do the same services for a quarter of the cost and 6x the uptime before the last of those lifers retires.
moox. for a new generation.
I live near New York City. NYC, London and maybe Hong Kong are the investment banking capitals of the world, and there are billions floating around because of it. Banks don't worry when their rank and file employees don't have jobs anymore due to automation, but that changes a lot when we start talking about the elite ranks.
For those who don't know, an associate job at an investment bank is an extremely common congratulatory gift for graduating from Ivy League and other elite schools' MBA programs. It's a closed club because the jobs (for new grads with zero work experience) start at a crazy six-figure salary and have bonus potential going way beyond that. The banks work the associates to the bone doing what basically amounts to number crunching in Excel and preparing pitch books for potential investors. If you live through this without getting fired, you will never worry about money again in your life once you graduate to the management and director/partner ranks. These are guys in their late 20s who own several cars, a condo in Manhattan and a Hamptons beach mansion...the amount of money floating around investment banking is unimaginable to regular humans.
If the elite don't have a place to put their kids after they get out of MBA school that gives them the same standard of living they have, you can bet they'll be privately worried, but they also have to publicly cheer for the automation of work because it's great for their clients. I hope we figure out the right balance, because otherwise someone is going to suggest killing off anyone who doesn't get over 120 on an IQ test, and that's not going to end well.
You shouldn't, and you won't. Pretty much no-one will. Most production will be entirely automated (in the west) within the next half a century or so. That's precisely the point: we will have immense production capabilities that require next to no workforce, but without UBI or an equivalent system, there will be no-one to buy any of those things which will lead to major issues.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead