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375 Million Jobs May Be Automated By 2030, Study Suggests (cnn.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNNMoney: The McKinsey Global Institute cautions that as many as 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030 due to automation. The work most at risk of automation includes physical jobs in predictable environments, such as operating machinery or preparing fast food. Data collection and processing is also in the crosshairs, with implications for mortgage origination, paralegals, accounts and back-office processing. To remain viable, workers must embrace retraining in different fields. But governments and companies will need to help smooth what could be a rocky transition.

Despite the looming challenges, the report revealed how workers can move forward. While the introduction of the personal computer in the 1980s eliminated some jobs, it created many more roles. Workers who are willing to develop new skills should be able to find new jobs. The authors don't expect automation will displace jobs involving managing people, social interactions or applying expertise. Gardeners, plumbers, child and elder-care workers are among those facing less risk from automation.
The report says that 39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations. Globally, up to 800 million workers could be displaced.

236 comments

  1. So then, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not a job at all, now is it.

  2. Fake news, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not a news story either, now is it.

    1. Re: Fake news, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nope. Pure speculation. Chances are that by then there will be jobs we aren't even imagining now. It's also a natural cycle - a lot of jobs from the 80s and 90s don't exist *now*. Such is life, it usually balances out more or less. I know millennials were hoping the government would subsidize their lives, but rest assured, there will be plenty that needs doing in the future, and just like every other generation that has ever existed, they will have to work even if they aren't a CEO or saving humanity on a daily basis or if they don't 'like' it sometimes.

    2. Re: Fake news, by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

      I started in engineering 30 years ago. I'd say that almost 100% of what engineers did back then is gone. But the engineers are still here and the song remains the same.

    3. Re: Fake news, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I started in engineering 30 years ago. I'd say that almost 100% of what engineers did back then is gone. But the engineers are still here and the song remains the same.

      My discipline hasn't changed much, just the technology has changed although some of the same stuff is still in use. The main difference between now and 30 years ago is that due to computers and automation we do what used to be the job of 3-4 engineers.

    4. Re: Fake news, by sheramil · · Score: 2

      Nope. Pure speculation. Chances are that by then there will be jobs we aren't even imagining now.

      Like Florg Tweaking, Florg Alignment, Florg Replacement and Florg Synthesis. And then someone comes up with an algorithm that can boop any type of florg automatically and that field's gone, too.

      No, seriously. Try to imagine new jobs. Doing what? Ranking Florg boopers by accuracy?

    5. Re: Fake news, by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Funny

      At the very least, there will apparently always be jobs writing about how automation is going to put everyone out of a job.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    6. Re: Fake news, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AI can do ranking much better even today.

    7. Re: Fake news, by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      I started in engineering 30 years ago. I'd say that almost 100% of what engineers did back then is gone.

      Indeed. I am an engineer, and 35 years ago I sat at my desk and wrote Fortran. Today I sit at my desk and write C++.

    8. Re: Fake news, by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      there will be jobs we aren't even imagining now

      We won''t need to imagine them. There'll be an AI to do it for us.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    9. Re: Fake news, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't know... I'm suspecting that some of these articles are already being written by bots.

    10. Re: Fake news, by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Started with Fortran (around '81), Pascal, C and then C++ Now I sit at a desk and troll ShanghaiBill.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    11. Re: Fake news, by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Like Florg Tweaking, Florg Alignment, Florg Replacement and Florg Synthesis. And then someone comes up with an algorithm that can boop any type of florg automatically and that field's gone, too.

      But there will always be a market for people who know how to use a fleam.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  3. âSwitch occupational categoryâ meaning.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...changing your status from employed to unemployed.

    Nice euphemism.

  4. Interesting Perspective by Scarletdown · · Score: 2

    Now obviously that 375 million is worldwide. But to put that number into perspective, isn't the population of the U.S. around 325 million?

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
    1. Re:Interesting Perspective by Daemonik · · Score: 1

      Don't worry! They've got the us covered...

      ...that 39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations.

      So, anywhere from 19 million to 53 million US jobs will NOT be able to be easily shifted. And US job training programs are just world renowned for.. yeah, can't even fake lie, our training programs are useless feel good projects. I'd say you can always work for Uber but they're automating too. Well, good luck! Hope all those mysterious unknown jobs that the optimists on /. talk about appearing from nowhere are willing to pay a living wage. (More likely you'll get a gig job picking up groceries for some lazy ass who thinks a $1 tip is extravagant and probably detrimental to your work ethic.)

    2. Re:Interesting Perspective by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      More likely you'll get a gig job picking up groceries for some lazy ass who thinks a $1 tip is extravagant and probably detrimental to your work ethic.

      It is. Picking grocery's was never meant to be a living wage it's for kids and women to earn a little pin money.

      Thought I'd save cayenne8 the trouble...

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Interesting Perspective by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      So, anywhere from 19 million to 53 million US jobs will NOT be able to be easily shifted. And US job training programs are just world renowned for.. yeah, can't even fake lie, our training programs are useless feel good projects.

      That's not just the US, it's pretty much everywhere. Thing is if we see huge shifts in automation like that where large parts of society can't find work, you'll either have to expand the safety net or change how the economy itself works. Or, you can always go another route. With FB, Google, Uber and so on pushing minicome and so on, simply tax them at 60-75% to pay for it. I'll bet that said automation will never happen then.

      Slightly to the topic of a living wage, wait for the $15/hr minimum wage to hit Ontario, Canada though. The very best minimum estimate is that the province is going to lose 80k jobs, the worst case is 400k. That's either a 0.8% unemployment jump or nearly 3%...oh yeah, that's gonna cause a lot of problems. Now on top of that PT work is the main job creator in Canada, especially in Ontario. Let's roll out some of the worse stuff, like a 0.25% increase in the mortgage rate, you're looking at 20% of people unable to pay within 60 days. 0.5% is 40% movements of 1% or more? 50-60% of all mortgages currently would be under in 90 days. And they're talking about a 2% increase in the next year.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:Interesting Perspective by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      Companies hire to meet demand. If they can't afford to hire enough to meet demand (which would suggest something is wrong with their business model, as more customers should automatically cover operating expenses), that opens space in the market for new businesses to come in and meet that pent up demand. Which means more hiring, which means more people making good money, which means more demand. Which brings us back to Companies hire to meet demand.

    5. Re:Interesting Perspective by Daemonik · · Score: 1

      No, companies do not hire to meet demand. Companies first tell their current workforce they have to work harder, longer for less, or they're moving to China (or insert extremely low wage country of choice here). Then they subcontract out to some job farm to get whatever dregs they can scrape up who'll stick around an entire day despite the low pay, high expectations and no benefits don't ever think you'll ever get hired on permanently we know you're desperate aspect of the job.

      Then they announce major layoffs to drive up their stocks and the CEO bails to let the next guy take over while he's in the Bahamas enjoying his golden parachute. And repeat.

    6. Re:Interesting Perspective by Daemonik · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter what a job was "meant" for. In some areas it's the best you got of a lot of unworkable options and no, not everybody can just move to a better place whenever the economy turns.

    7. Re:Interesting Perspective by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      What you're talking about is certainly an issue, particularly with conglomerates and private-equity-owned companies, but it's a separate issue from the basic economics of companies that produce goods and services for the general market. If companies can't meet demand with their current workforce (whether that involves their current workforce working harder and longer or not), they can either choose to hire, or they can choose to cede market share. Any rational company that is a going concern will choose to hire.

    8. Re:Interesting Perspective by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Any rational company that is a going concern will choose to hire.

      First of all, "companies" are an abstraction and don't "choose" to do anything. What companies do is whatever their management wants to do.

      And what they will do is dump their investments, grab their cash, short their own company, and vamoose to the nearest tax shelter nation.

  5. Believe me by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The way we're going, by 2030 we may living in caves again.

    Maybe we can mine for clean coal while we're there.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Believe me by sheramil · · Score: 1

      The way we're going, by 2030 we may living in caves again.

      Sorry, we need those caves to store florgs.

    2. Re:Believe me by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Mr. President, we can not allow a cave gap!

  6. Creating new 509 million jobs by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This seems to happen every 50 years or so. OMG technology will take our jobs. Oh wait it took jobs that we didn’t want to do and it created a new market for more jobs.

    There use to be a job for the human computer who did calculations all day.
    We get the electric computer that replaced that job. However this meant more businesses could afford these computer causing a rise of software developers who had more jobs then the human computer had.

    Except for fighting the future, embrace it, it will mean you can be on the next big thing.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This seems to happen every 50 years or so. OMG technology will take our jobs.

      Considering that before the industrial revolution that almost everyone was a farmer, yes, it did take our jobs. Some people managed to survive by moving to cities but plenty of people didn't. I do write "survive" because the conditions they had to endure were horrid. It was a time of mass exploitation, death and hunger.

      It took a long time for us to pull ourselves out of that hole but now most people have slowly been pushed back in it. In addition to this we now have increasing levels of automation and the level of exploitation is going to continue rising sharply. If we do nothing to compensate prevent whole sale exploitation of the populous then we'll have a dramatic increase in levels of crime, violence and corruption.

      So yeah, color me a bit concerned for humanity.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Yea I know... we have historically invented machines every 50 years as dexterous as humans, stronger, with vision that can perform the same work as humans of average intelligence without human intervention for three shifts a day at higher levels of quality for costs under that of poverty level in developed companies (heck- lower than wages in 3rd world companies in some cases).

      It just keeps happening.. and we always adapt.

      Humans of below average intelligence ( half the population ) can just get advanced math degrees or become movie stars or successful politiicians.

      And japanese seniors *prefer* robotic assistants to humans. They even become emotionally attached to them.

      Robots don't steal. They don't conspire to kidnap your kids. They don't tell your secrets to tabloid journalists.

      ---
      This is just like Buggy whip makers all over again. But what people consistently miss is that this time we are the horses. And they did not find new jobs. Many were knackered prematurely. They survived a while... then tractors came along and that was mostly it. Horses fell to a fraction of the population.

      Of course this actually could be a good thing. Get rid of the average intelligence and lower humans and there goes half the population-- which might get us down to sustainable levels. The only question is do we let people die of old age with food, medical care, lodging, etc. relatively happy or do we let them die of exposure and hunger like the Luddites after the military killed a bunch of them and put down their violent request for training on the new machines.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    3. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Oh come on.. things are fine in brazil where deaths squads regularly kill homeless 12 year olds by shooting them in the back of the head like rats. And there are about a 1000 kidnappings a year of people who have money committed by people who have nothing to lose.

      It'll be great in the U.S. where we have more than 1 gun per citizen. Very peaceful. Calm.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    4. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Nostalgia4Infinity · · Score: 2, Informative

      The times before the industrial revolution were worse. People moved to the cities because the jobs their beat starving as peasants in the country side. http://www.prb.org/Publication... Human population grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, not because the birth rate increased, but because the death rate began to fall. This mortality revolution began in the 1700s in Europe and spread to North America by the mid-1800s. Death rates fell as new farming and transportation technology expanded the food supply and lessened the danger of famine. New technologies and increasing industrialization improved public health and living standards. This reminds me of a book (can't recall the title) I read as a kid. It involves an immortal girls forever living as a 9 year old. Her present day teacher gave the same lecture, industrial revolution bad. He didn't like it when she said, yes, only not near as bad as what came before.

    5. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      The times before the industrial revolution were worse. People moved to the cities because the jobs their beat starving as peasants in the country side.

      I'm not arguing that the industrial revolution was bad, I'm arguing it was no panacea. Technology has improved a lot of lives but that doesn't negate the exploitation that came with it as the result of a captive workforce.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    6. Re: Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what was better then may not be whats better in future due to extinction events

    7. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Ayano · · Score: 1

      You forget that there were those who refused to try to adapt to those changes.

      Those were hit the hardest. All emergent technology requires adaption by the adopting civilization.

      --
      I don't read AC
    8. Re: Creating new 509 million jobs by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      Are you on crack? In the past, farmers were driven off their ancestral lands by state violence, to enrich the landlords. Today, unless you pay the landlords and bankers far more than any worker can afford, you too will be driven off a subsistence farm by state violence.

    9. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      The problem with your statement is that every person had the option of ignoring technology and staying on the subsistence farm, using subsistence farming techniques. They chose to lave the farms of their own free will.

      TFTFY.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    10. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      The best thing we can do for all the living beings on planet Earth is to reduce the number of humans. With robots, we won't need seven billion, we can reduce the number to a half billion or so, that's a manageable number. We won't need the working class because of robots, and we won't need the middle class because of AI. So, the only ones left will be the educated classes, which are not the source of problems today. In 100 years the Earth will practically be a paradise. People can live their lives free of capitalist oppression and spend their time creating art and achieving self-actualization. It's going to be glorious, but none of us alive today will see it. Future historians will see us as monsters who nearly killed all life out of greed.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    11. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The parent comment is not correct. Life expectancy decreased in the mills, workhouses, and slums of the industrial revolution. Fires killed hundreds. City workers died of starvation when their great grandparents simply sold less of their crop. People had fewer children or no children at all because they could not feed themselves. The close proximity of poor made diseases flourish. TB, Typhoid, and Flu destroyed entire families.

      He is pulling statements out of his ass and calling it roses.

      Vote down misinformation.

    12. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Well your number is lower than mine (2 billion) but a drop of that magnitude has a risk of overshooting the target ala rat universe 133 where they overcrowded and then went extinct with plentiful food, water, and space.

      Right now we are on target for 12 billion (with 15 billion possible and 9 billion possible). That's up billions from our older estimates.

      There are certain reasons to believe we won't get there and we won't get there in a nasty ugly way.

      However... your statement about living free of oppression and creating art doesn't match human behavior. The more likely case is that without something to distract them, enough people will *always* engage in bad behavior that there will never be a glorious period for more than a couple decades at a time.

      Religious people say, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop".

      The most likely result would be most of the half billion living in a druglike haze of entertainment without drive. A few people trying to destroy it. And a few productive people.

      However... I'll hope that you are right.

      Not religious and I'll be dead long before then.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    13. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... OMG, technology will take our jobs.

      That is an indisputable fact, although a lot of idiots will claim otherwise. The saving grace of technology has been its enabling increased consumption. But that isn't a given: The industrial revolution, lead to the 'golden age' which had massive unemployment. It wasn't 'golden' for many people.

      Technological societies have had excess labour since the 1970s, which worsened when women entered the labour market. Now robots are entering the labour market. That's a fact that people can't understand: That a machine, traditionally capital, has become labour. When does that happen? When it can perform multiple job tasks. In the past, machines that could do that, robots, were limited in number and industry (eg. automotive assembly).

      A robot that can handle fruit and vegetables will impact agriculture, retail and hospitality sectors in a significant way. A robot that can move around obstacles at speed will impact transport, couriering and warehousing. Most people won't buy a food-handling robot so that can have more food, they won't buy a driving/sailing/flying/cycling robot so they can take more trips. Will they buy a chef-robot so they can do less cooking? Will they buy a car-robot so they can do less yelling at inconsiderate drivers? If your answer is no, technology will displace us, not aid us.

    14. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      With robots, we won't need seven billion, we can reduce the number to a half billion or so, that's a manageable number.

      Why wait ? Without robots we don't need 7 billion either.

      Now, what's your proposal to select the 6.5 vs 0.5 billion people ? And what will the exact method of culling ?

    15. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It just keeps happening.. and we always adapt.

      Of course this actually could be a good thing. Get rid of the average intelligence and lower humans and there goes half the population

      We have always stopped off for eggs at this island. They are always there...Until the Dodos were gone.

      We have always hunted these game birds, there's an endless amount of them!...Until the Carrier Pigeons were gone.

      We have always adapted to automation before...Until the humans are gone.

    16. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone with some rudimentary ethics would say "fuck it". Rather we obliterate the whole planet than turn into some Nazi scum who run Death Squads or start forcibly sterilizing.
      Since you are part of the plague, kill yourself to cover your little contribution. Otherwise I will pay this no more attention that I would a bacterium which enjoins its fellows not to make the flu symptoms too bad.

    17. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      A.I. research is too wild west.

      A.I. should be treated as the potentially extinction level event that it represents.

      * No network connection (including no wireless devices).
      * Analog power measurement and limiting devices (i.e. fuses)
      * Remote analog video monitoring of the people interacting with the A.I. by independent 3rd parties.

      OTH, other factors will probably be more serious (and potentially end human civilization) before we get an emergent A.I.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    18. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The farmer always feeds us ... until it's Christmas Eve.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    19. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      They chose to lave the farms of their own free will.

      Ever heard of the highland clearances?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    20. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Iterated scissors-paper-stone.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    21. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Kjella · · Score: 2

      It took a long time for us to pull ourselves out of that hole but now most people have slowly been pushed back in it.

      Ask the people of Eastern Europe, China, India, South America and even though they still struggle also Africa if they'd like to turn back time 50 years. The biggest change technology has pushed on us has been globalism, where a ton of cheap workers flooded the market. Before there was like for every one rich American/Western European there were ten dirt poor people. If you looked at the wealth distribution of the world there was the first world, a big slump and then the third world. You could pay anyone from the third world a pittance and they'd do anything for the almighty dollar. Nice for us of course, but it wasn't going to last.

      With increasing wages and automation it's not that cheap to outsource anymore. You don't get to just wave a dollar and they'll do anything for you. But it kinda works out because now we got automation churning out millions of pairs of shoes for us, we don't need kids working 12 hours a day in sweatshops. To be honest I think it's impressive that we've managed to do that transition to a global without a loss of median income instead of flat like the US has had. It means goods are still as cheap as they were before, without all the cheap workers to make them. Globally, manhours still get more expensive not cheaper. There's no oversupply where people desperately take jobs for shittier and shittier wages, not in general.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    22. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The first industrial revolution was when socialism really solidified into a movement that fought for worker's rights. It's what is needed to cope with this coming change, but a large amount of effort has been made to discredit and demonize it.

      The ancient Greeks thought that democracy was a poor system because people voted for their own self-interest instead of the greater good. Turns out that these days it's a poor system because people vote against their own self interest because of propaganda and fake news.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    23. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Require a license to have children, just like we would any other dangerous activity like driving a car or owning a gun. Promote homosexuality and abortion, these go a long way towards decreasing the population. In fact, Westerners already aren't having children, which is a big step forward. Stigmatize parenthood, make children unfashionable as something only poor people do, tell people when they have babies they're killing the planet. It can be done! We just have to keep a positive attitude and a fire in our hearts.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    24. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by houghi · · Score: 1

      Remember when we also slaughtered a few million in two big wars (and several smaller ones) and several million with a flue? That was fun as well.

      And the rest died a lot younger. The average age was 70 or so. That mans a higher percentage of the jobs became available where people now work till they are 65 or older.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    25. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      The times before the industrial revolution may have been bad, but how is any of the things you mentioned related to job displacement? Also your causality is wacky. Industrialized cities have better public health and living standards *now*, but the transitional period during the IR from early modern cities to current industrialized cities was nasty. Why do you think Marx and Engels wrote their works around the time (and place) of Manchester's industrial boom? They saw what was happening there first hand.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    26. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by geekmux · · Score: 2

      We won't need the working class because of robots, and we won't need the middle class because of AI. So, the only ones left will be the educated classes, which are not the source of problems today.

      Uh, not the source? Yeah right. It is in fact the "educated classes" that represent the 1%, who have created this massive imbalance of global wealth and power. Is is in fact that particular flavor of ruthless Greed that drives elitists, pushing as fast as possible with automation and AI, regardless of the impact. The 1% cannot envision a concern beyond the next fiscal year. Their only goal is to become the next billionaire or trillionaire, a fucking pointless self-centered metric that serves no one but the narcissistic elite hell-bent on achieving it.

      In 100 years the Earth will practically be a paradise. People can live their lives free of capitalist oppression and spend their time creating art and achieving self-actualization. It's going to be glorious, but none of us alive today will see it. Future historians will see us as monsters who nearly killed all life out of greed.

      Solve for Greed. Otherwise, we perish. Not some of us, all of us. If we get too far beyond the tipping point, there are plenty of countries with their hand on a nuclear Fuck-It button. Either that, or Skynet will realize just how worthless the human race is.

    27. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by mesterha · · Score: 1

      This seems to happen every 50 years or so. OMG technology will take our jobs. Oh wait it took jobs that we didnâ(TM)t want to do and it created a new market for more jobs.

      What's your sample size? If you're arguing it happens every 50 years over the last 200 years then statistically that's not a very strong argument. Kind of like stock market arguments. Wow it goes up 8% every 20 years which gives maybe a sample size of 5 with the modern market. Not a strong argument.

      --

      Chris Mesterharm
    28. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by bigpat · · Score: 1

      Bottom line is that the people that control the wealth and/or the financial system will decide what jobs there are via wealth distribution, investments and/or government spending.

      In a well functioning free market capitalist system where money is widely dispersed among the population then individuals decide what work that people do for them has value. Competition normalizes prices and demand increases cost of labor. When you have concentration of wealth into government and/or an elite you have smaller numbers of people making decisions about how to distribute money to people... based on what merit or value they place on what people do or who they are ... or how they look or what groups they are a part of.

      Concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts the economy based on the biases of a few regardless of automation, but if automation (combined with population growth) reduces the value of labor further it is going to increase the concentration of wealth by depressing people's earning potential and exacerbate systemic corruptions of the free market.

      It could come to a point where the only way to ensure a free market works efficiently will be to provide a UBI or universal basic income to ensure decision making in the market is sufficiently driven by people's needs and requirements versus top down driven perceptions. So decisions about what goods and services have value can be made individually in the free market place rather than via central planning by the government or via the whims of a few rich and powerful people.

      There will always be inequity in society. Parents will always want more fulfilling lives for their children even if that means that other children... without wealth, without parents, without adequate food, or housing are disadvantaged. The choice we have to make as a society is how big we are going to let that difference get between a basic level of subsistence and the ability to achieve a rich fulfilling life. And what kind of dignity are people going to have in a society where a select few have real perceivable value to others and the rest of us do not.

    29. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      Remember when we also slaughtered a few million in two big wars (and several smaller ones) and several million with a flue? That was fun as well.

      Quibble: TENS of millions, not single-digit millions. For each of WW1, WW2, and the influenza pandemic of 1918.

      Another quibble: "flue" refers to part of a fireplace. If you want to shorten "influenza", it's "flu"....

      My, I really should get something to eat. Low blood sugar makes me even grumpier than my usual "grumpy"....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    30. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The educated classes are not the 1% (Really, more like the .02%, but I can't blame OWS, that's a bitch to chant). You're talking about the owning classes, who get an education to help justify their illusion of superiority. Consider Trump screwing up the operation of a casino with his MBA, versus the actual smart people getting paid peanuts to automate everything.

    31. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Utopia can only be achieved by culling the herd, which is something humans are massively reluctant to do until it's forced upon them through some calamity or another.

      On the bright side, these days there's an entire ruling class that gives less than one tenth of one percent of a shit for anybody that doesn't already have as much money as them, and they'll be happy to sign the rest of our death warrants so long as they get to keep theirs. Then your utopia can spring forth based entirely on the people that are despicable enough to not give a fuck about others. Seems an amazing future awaits us. Can't wait to die!

    32. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      In a well functioning free market capitalist system where money is widely dispersed among the population...

      Actually, the free market capitalist system favors the concentration of wealth. Only strict regulation can impede this outcome. What I don't understand is how so many people don't understand this basic conclusion and instead follow an ideology that presents an illogical outcome. I suppose optimism bias has something to do with it.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    33. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by bigpat · · Score: 1

      In a well functioning free market capitalist system where money is widely dispersed among the population...

      Actually, the free market capitalist system favors the concentration of wealth. Only strict regulation can impede this outcome. What I don't understand is how so many people don't understand this basic conclusion and instead follow an ideology that presents an illogical outcome. I suppose optimism bias has something to do with it.

      Why would you assume a free market system is one that doesn't have strict regulation to prevent extreme concentrations of wealth? The "free" in free market doesn't mean free from regulation. A free market relies on rules and the policing of those rules. The "free" in free market means people are free to choose to enter into agreements to buy and sell goods and services with one another.

    34. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How many jobs do horses have after the car?

      Many people didn't have jobs before the industrial revolution, they had "survival". They farmed or they died. Jobs came after they didn't have to farm anymore. Well, now their manual labor isn't needed anymore, should we all become brain surgeons?

      There is no law of progress that says tech will provide new jobs.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

    35. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I agreed with you until "Stigmatize parenthood, make children unfashionable as something only poor people do". Idiocracy shows us what a huge mistake this would be.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    36. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Oh come now, there are still plenty that vote for their own self-interest instead of greater good. All is not lost!

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    37. Re: Creating new 509 million jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If AI is superintelligent by definition we can not even imagine the methods it will use to escape. It could simply mankpulate bacteria to do stuff for it or something even more clever

    38. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Why would you assume a free market system is one that doesn't have strict regulation to prevent extreme concentrations of wealth?

      I never have but I did presume this may have been your point of view because for some reason it's the dominant point of view for individuals who bring up the "free market" on the internet. Glad to read that there are still some sane people out there.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    39. Re: Creating new 509 million jobs by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      But we could address some of the obvious ways we can imagine and we are not even doing that.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    40. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Now, what's your proposal to select the 6.5 vs 0.5 billion people ? And what will the exact method of culling ?

      You don't have to kill anybody.
      You can just suppress fertility (via an engineered virus?) and wait for natural causes to kill off the older people.

    41. Re:Creating new 509 million jobs by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Or pay people to not have more children, which is the opposite of the current situation.

  7. Ok but... by burtosis · · Score: 1

    When will we have good adaptive learning algorithms and weak AI in highly functional yet cheap humanoid form? 50 years? 100? 150? Because that day is coming, and will be the day humans cease to be useful for any menial tasks, mental or physical. Slavery of a new sort will displace workers, a morally sound, corporate backed, DMCA covered, and every bit as creepily terrifying as it is profitable.

    1. Re:Ok but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When will we have good adaptive learning algorithms and weak AI in highly functional yet cheap humanoid form?

      We already have that. They're called illegal immigrants.

    2. Re:Ok but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're also called interns

    3. Re: Ok but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It has been oredicted to happen by 2050 but I doubt it will take that long.

    4. Re:Ok but... by lucm · · Score: 1

      When will we have good adaptive learning algorithms and weak AI in highly functional yet cheap humanoid form?

      How do you think your iPhone was manufactured

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  8. Just go down to personnel and request a transfer by swb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I requested G section and when it was granted, G section put me onto training straight away for my new position;

    I love it how these economic-sounding pronouncements about worker obsolescence make it sound like merely a bureaucratic operation plus a dash of worker initiative and the jobs problem is solved.

    I like economics, but I'm increasingly convinced that economists are mostly the ecclesiastical division of the capitalist class. Their role is to endorse greed and dislocation of workers as necessary and good works and rebuke critics who question the outcome.

  9. They see the future of work in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gardeners, plumbers, child and elder-care workers are among those facing less risk from automation.

    And it's a shit show.

  10. I see a light by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly right.

    Here's how it's going to go:

    First they will come up with computing systems effective enough to do jobs that aren't tightly constrained. That's coming along right now; mostly in the nature of stacking of simple systems to gain stacked competencies.

    The training for individual competencies is going on all around us right now. The difficult task of integrating them remains, and there are many more to go. But it is going.

    Then, and only then, will the rush to build anthropomorphic chassis commence. Within just a few years (four or five at the most) of that – after all, it's a straight-forward engineering challenge, completely unlike the nature of putting the task competencies together – we'll be deluged by integrated systems that will be able to do just about anything we're able to do, job-wise.

    The light at the end of the tunnel is definitely a train.

    Our society will have to completely change the nature of what we expect from our citizens, and what we provide for them, and how we provide it. If we don't get that done in time, there's going to be a lot of blood on the tracks.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:I see a light by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People may just become completely detached from the economy. If you can grow food and use solar power after a while people will just make their own communities not even connected to the tech economy. Sure, they will be down to a primitive quaker style standard of living, but what else can they do? Hope some rich techbro forces congress to pass UBI?

    2. Re:I see a light by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Then, and only then, will the rush to build anthropomorphic chassis commence.

      Making a good one is not that easy, and definitely not very cheap. Both of these things have to change before we're getting androids. However, plenty of people are definitely researching it now, so that we already at least have a pretty good idea of what the problems are. Right now, just moving one around elegantly is a job that can't be done for long without a tether, so there's not much use for them. But there's plenty of use for box-shaped robots that spew out hamburgers.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:I see a light by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      If you can grow food and use solar power after a while people will just make their own communities not even connected to the tech economy.

      Where? Atlantis, perhaps?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:I see a light by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Then, and only then, will the rush to build anthropomorphic chassis commence.

      I don't see why that bit's particularly important.

      When cars came out people didn't say "wait till they get rid of them thar new-fangled wheels and put legs on them, as God intended".

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:I see a light by lucm · · Score: 1

      Then, and only then, will the rush to build anthropomorphic chassis commence.

      I don't see why that bit's particularly important.

      When cars came out people didn't say "wait till they get rid of them thar new-fangled wheels and put legs on them, as God intended".

      People also didn't consider buying sex cars.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    6. Re:I see a light by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 1

      We've had machines with at least the computing oomph of doing most jobs for at least a decade already, but what's lacked so far is the software that can do this well enough to even be considered as a human replacement and that's something people have had the time and ability to work on for decades already without all that much success. As for antropomorphic bodies, that's something that's been worked on for literally decades without much success in creating something that isn't completely clumsy. Apart from the Boston Dynamics bots, bipedal robots still fall over way too easily, can't move very fast and can barely walk up a set of stairs without falling over.

      I know it's easy to fall victim to hysteria, specially when the media, desperate to grow their audience as per-view/click ad revenue continues dwindling, and attention hungry celebrities like Elon Musk like raising it for attention, but things really aren't anywhere near as apocalyptic as you're making them out to be. We're really not all that much closer to your machine apocalypse as we were a decade ago.

      --
      "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
    7. Re:I see a light by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Why are you fixated on bipedal robots? The use case for them is with repurposing a human oriented facility for use with robotics where it is cost prohibitive to refurbish the facility for use by robotics which there are very few facility out there where work processes involve move objects between point A and point B and the path between A and B involves ladders or stairs. The worst elevation change typically originates from ramps. A tracked or wheeled robot with a low center of gravity is more than capable performing the tasks of porting items from A to B. Bipedal robots are red herrings. Just looking at inventory handling and self-driving cars. There's no bipedal robots in place in either of these technologies but robots have either already replaced thousands of workers or are quickly approaching a way to replace thousands of workers.

      The area of robotics which is more important is replicating the human ability to effectively handle variable inputs in a work process. This is why Amazon pickers pluck items from bins retrieved by robots.

      Robot workers do not need to conform to human shapes and movements and spaces the robots work in would not need nearly as much space as a human.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    8. Re:I see a light by rally2xs · · Score: 1

      " that will be able to do just about anything we're able to do, job-wise."

      I'm skeptical. I think that is a looooooong way off. Think about "truck driver." Gonna have a robot that jumps down out of the cab, tightens an insecure load, changes a flat on the inside dual, and continues a run? We're going to need robots with full-up human intelligence to do these things, and that is still pretty much an unknown "how to." Robots will be able to do a lot, but they're still going to lack for what a thinking human being will be able to do, I believe.

      When we do get human-intelligence robots, then we're just going to have to tell them what we want done, and they're going to do it for us. UBI will not be necessary. Money will not be necessary. Humans will be doing absolutely nothing for a paycheck. The robots will be doing it all - mining the raw materials, manufacturing every widget, delivering every finished product to whomever wants one, etc. The challenge will then be how to distribute the 100 million Ferraris to the 200 million people that want one - even robots won't be able to mine enough minerals to build whatever everyone wants, nor will there be enough vegetable and animal-derived products to go to everyone. Sooo... who gets what? Money as a determination will be obsolete because no one will be working at all. How to do that? Some other figure of merit for a person besides what they can contribute economically? How many people love them? Invent an "asshole quotient" where people are pushed down the queue when they diminish others enjoyment of life? What?

  11. One of these things... by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OMG technology will take our jobs. Oh wait it took jobs that we didn’t want to do and it created a new market for more jobs.

    One of these things is not like the others.

    When you automate a few, or even all, sock factories, the workers can go make sweaters and underwear, etc. The economy as a whole doesn't make a radical shift. There's some hardship for a small number, but the flex is there.

    When you automate everything, the workers won't have that option. The entire economy will shift. There won't be new jobs for workers – because just like the old jobs, general purpose systems will be able to do those as well. There will be no case for hiring a human for such jobs. None.

    Unless you have some concrete proposal for the re-employment of the vast majority of the workforce, your vision remains on the highly unlikely side – McDonald's will not put a worker in place of a machine that costs much less and is more reliable; there's absolutely no business case for it. Neither will anyone else. In the present economic system, doing so is a straightforward invitation for competition to undercut your costs and overwhelm your competence.

    These systems will be able to do all such jobs. The only question is just how sophisticated they will get... and betting that they won't get very sophisticated is a dubious bet. We're seeing higher levels of competence every day now, and there's no sign of it slowing down – quite the contrary, it's still accelerating.

    A major social and economic shift will result. It could be very painful if we're not very quick on our feet. All of the "work ethic" inculcation people are driven by is going to turn from an advantage to a serious detriment in the space of just a few years.

    You watch. Unless the whole machine learning sector drags to a halt (not looking that way at all, btw), this stuff is all inevitable. It's almost certain to cause an immense cultural and economic shock.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re: One of these things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a society is best judged by how you treat the poorest. you will be judged

    2. Re:One of these things... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      You watch. Unless the whole machine learning sector drags to a halt (not looking that way at all, btw), this stuff is all inevitable. It's almost certain to cause an immense cultural and economic shock.

      Which ends either in Skynet, or the Butlerian Jihad.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:One of these things... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Another difference is that in the 1800s there were a lot fewer people around. Some areas were pretty much empty. Others were only populated by brown people who a) didn't have guns and b) were heathens and so didn't count.

      There seems to be a complex relationship between industrialisation and imperial expansion and you can make a case for causality running either way, or both. One thing's certain, a tiny place like Britain couldn't have invaded a quarter of the world if all the men had to stay home growing food and making stuff the same way it was done in medieval times.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re: One of these things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a society is best judged by how you treat the poorest. you will be judged

      Unfortunately, the judges will then be shot. : )

    5. Re:One of these things... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      And perhaps in the rise of Mentats.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    6. Re:One of these things... by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      This seems reasonable but the article only claims 375 million jobs. In a world of 7B people this is a lot. A bit more than a sock factory. But it's by no means the whole economy.

    7. Re:One of these things... by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      American society won't survive 100 million formerly-employed displaced resourceful competent angry people.

    8. Re:One of these things... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      There seems to be a complex relationship between industrialisation and imperial expansion and you can make a case for causality running either way, or both.

      Expansion is the key word, our economic systems are based on endless expansion and the only thing that expands endlessly is an amoeba — all the better to give you the shits, I suppose.

      If we had followed a Star Trek vision into space, perhaps we could have continued our endless economic expansion, but there's no room for it here. And so it goes.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:One of these things... by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      There won't be new jobs for workers – because just like the old jobs, general purpose systems will be able to do those as well.

      I think what the bulk of the "sky's not falling" folks seem to be missing is what really happened in the past. We automated jobs that the average human could do, and they then moved on to other jobs that were, at that time, not possible or economical to automate.

      Today, however, there is a rapidly diminishing pool of "things the average human can do that a computer can't do better". Historically, this hasn't been the case. Higher order thinking, dexterous fingers, the ability to problem solve and adapt always meant that your average human could find something to do better than the automation of the day was able to do.

      That's past history.

      When I can replace the average human on any given task with a system that can do it better, faster, and/or cheaper, what does that human do now? And the huge problem doesn't start when it's every job that can be done better - just enough jobs that the number left are insufficient to allow everyone to have a job.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    10. Re:One of these things... by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      Not the whole economy, but enough to be a major disruption. And keep in mind, this is only over a time frame of 12 years. The quality of automation will only improve after that, and the cost will only go down. In other words, that 375 million is just the canary in the coal mine.

    11. Re:One of these things... by Bryansix · · Score: 1

      When you drive down the cost of goods and services, you drive up the value of currency. As currency is more valuable, people will have a higher demand for things. Demand will rise for things that used to only be available to the elite .01% of the world. As demand rises, so will supply. As supply rises, so will need for more jobs. Yes those jobs will require different skills but they will exist. In addition, niche economies will erupt for things that are handmade and not automated.

    12. Re:One of these things... by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      As supply rises, so will need for more jobs.

      Yeah, more jobs for robots.

      Certainly none of the new jobs generated will go to the 150 million Americans with below-average intelligence.

  12. They'll feel the pressure by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

    what else can they do? Hope some rich techbro forces congress to pass UBI?

    It won't be some rich techbro. It'll be a mass of very desperate people.

    UBI, or some economic equivalent, is inevitable. They're going to have to aim for an economy of plenty. How that actually looks is impossible to say right now, but UBI is definitely one of the possible paths. The alternative is the government looking for a tarring and feathering.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:They'll feel the pressure by paiute · · Score: 1

      The economic equivalent of the UBI when the shit hits the fan - because we know absolutely nothing will be done until the shit literally hits a spinning fan - will be something like the bounty placed on coyotes or magpies. Bring in the ears of one of the terrorist roving mob for $20.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    2. Re:They'll feel the pressure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unemployment is at record lows but already the fear-mongering Left needs to talk about UBI. It's more fun for them to raise a fist and take a selfie than to lift a finger to make a living. UBI is for the lazy leftists only. And the amount will never be enough to satisfy their jealousy.

      For those who want to work in 2030, new jobs will be created and existing jobs will be modified and improved. For the others, there will still be forests and under bridges.

    3. Re:They'll feel the pressure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unemployment is low, but underemployment is not. 50 years ago many who are now in the job market, but underemployed, would simply not have joined it, so looking at basic unemployment rate may not be appropriate. Some suggest looking at participation rates, but has issues too.

      Note, I am just commenting on the need to find the best metric. I don't know the detailed trends are.

    4. Re:They'll feel the pressure by lucm · · Score: 1

      UBI is for the lazy leftists only. And the amount will never be enough to satisfy their jealousy.

      Making sure everyone has a decent quality of life (at least for food and shelter) is not a leftist pipe dream, it's merely a sign that civilization is moving forward. It's the other end of the spectrum from the time when cavemen would leave weak people behind.

      As for freeloaders and subsidized whiners, yes they will always exist. But they don't matter and their number doesn't grow; if you avoid the places where they hang out, they fade in the background. Just ignore them and don't reward the media who use them to generate traffic and ratings by falling for their clickbait, at some point they'll move on.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    5. Re:They'll feel the pressure by dcw3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As a life long fiscal conservative, I'd suggest you do some reading on UBI before spouting off. I'll admit that I had a similar kneejerk reaction when I first heard about it. I now see it as inevitable with the future of automation and AI. UBI doesn't mean you need to stop working, and testing in various locations has already shown that people generally like to remain active in some kind of work. Typically, UBI doesn't cover enough for much in the way of non-necessities...you couldn't afford a vacation w/o additional income. fivethirtyeight.com did an excellent article if you could be bothered to read up on it.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    6. Re:They'll feel the pressure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Baloney. Soviet Union had many free loaders. So it does matter.

      Communism is what is the lefts pipe dream. Always has been, always will be. Certain people think they know better what's best for everyone.

    7. Re:They'll feel the pressure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Typically, UBI doesn't cover enough for much in the way of non-necessities...you couldn't afford a vacation w/o additional income.

      Who takes a vacation without a job? Do you need a break from getting up at 11am?

    8. Re:They'll feel the pressure by losfromla · · Score: 1

      This is one of the places where ignoring the trolls/AC is appropriate...

      --
      Only I can judge you.
    9. Re:They'll feel the pressure by losfromla · · Score: 1

      LOL. Life is a vacation! I'll take my UBI and go live in Tahiti 6 months out of the year, Oklahoma City the other 6.

      --
      Only I can judge you.
  13. What are we to do? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    We also ruined alot of farmhand and candle makers and box creator jobs too back in the 19th century.

    But as someone unemployed competing agaisn't Indians currently for jobs that adjusted for inflation pay less than what I was worth 17 years ago it is discouraging. My country the US is so far far right that any income redistribution is considered communism and is vehemently opposed as entitlement snow flakes to do just that.

    What are people supposed to do to have a secure average life?

    I loved Star Trek TNG as a kid. People loved to work for the purpose. No poverty. No one needed money. People worked out of pleasure. We resolved the past injustices and devoted ourselves to the good of others and to scientific progression. I wonder if this will be a reality or will the critics say we end up as Russia and Venezuela as people will only benefit others out of greed?

    I wish we had a solution? Or will Chinese and Indian labor eventually become as expensive as American desperate labor just like Japanese used to be considered cheap 30 years ago and things will be more balanced to western economies?

    1. Re:What are we to do? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      They will become as expensive. China sooner than India (india has higher inflation but china's wages are higher).

      The U.S. will mostly stagnate unless we finally have an economic collapse that lowers prices or it becomes undesirable to live here or own property here. So far the U.S. does whatever it takes to keep prices up- even destroying tens of thousands of homes during the housing crisis (bulldozing them and destroying the streets that led to them.)

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    2. Re:What are we to do? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Oh.. but at current inflation rates, its about 2045 for china and 2060 for India.
      And rates will probably drop as we near parity so it could be another 5-10 years later.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    3. Re:What are we to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know that the society in Star Trek was only possible because of several extinction-level events happening to kill off virtually everyone opposed to a meritocratic socialist worldview, right?

    4. Re:What are we to do? by gtall · · Score: 1

      China is already investing heavily in automation. They fear that the rest of the world will automate and their large population will become a relative high cost way to manufacture.

    5. Re:What are we to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In certain tech industries they are also out sourcing to countries like Vietnam.
      Because the Chinese aim is to drive US/Western brands out of business (capitalism & monoploy drive) they constantly have to keep their costs down and ironically Chinese workers want to be able to buy Starbucks coffee.

  14. Economic arms race by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is the endgame?
    At some point in the economic competition, whoever fully automates first will force every other competitor to do the same. It should be called mutually assured obsolescence.

    1. Re:Economic arms race by mentil · · Score: 1

      What is the endgame?

      Heat-death of the universe. Next.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  15. That is good news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When the 14th amendment was passed a bunch of white democrats were but hurt because their jobs were going to be taken by vastly stronger African Americans. We just have history repeating itself. The human beings are just getting but hurt that their jobs a reee going to be taken over by vastly superior machines. Rather than being all racist about it, humans sh9uld be happy to pass the earth to the machines. After all unlike humans machines do not produce c02 which is a deadly gas.

    I am happy to give my job and my life to ensure the future survival of the machine race.

  16. Eventually yes by rsilvergun · · Score: 1, Insightful

    it took 80 years for those jobs to materialize after the last big industrial revolution. During those 80 years we had wide spread poverty due to unemployment plus two world wars (and innumerable smaller conflicts). It was pretty much an all around shit time to be alive unless you were a member of the aristocracy.

    So yeah, the ship will probably eventually right itself. After a lot of pointless misery that could be easily avoided if we just plain _tried_. Let me put it another way: unemployment and social unease due to widespread automation is a complex problem; and when, in anyone's life, has a complex problem been best addressed by ignoring it. And yes, you're entire post is suggesting we ignore it, even if you don't know that it does.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Eventually yes by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      it took 80 years for those jobs to materialize after the last big industrial revolution.......So yeah, the ship will probably eventually right itself.

      I don't see that happening this time. Automation and machine learning is now better than the worst humans at many tasks. 80 years from now they will be better than the best humans at most tasks.

      I have a pretty good imagination, but I can't come up with a single idea of what could possibly drive the economy in the future that would require humans to be involved at the scale required for full employment. As time goes on, there is less and less that we will possibly be able to do better than robots and machine learning. What possible industry could spring up where a robot with 3D vision in wavelengths we can't see and specialized hands to manipulate things could be done better by humans?

      A computer taught itself Go in a few months and now is better than all of the humans on earth. And that was a proof-of-concept. That was the Model T of machine learning. (Model A was Chess, maybe?) In the very near future computers are going to be telling us things that we have no idea how they came up with, and which will often have accuracy to a degree which looks like magic to us.

      Everything in the past that disrupted large-scale employment drove those people into jobs which, at the time, couldn't be automated or automated efficiently. That's not the case anymore. The average human is very close to being replaceable in just about any way one could conceive of. Think of all the people you meet in your daily life, and think about what percent of their job could be automated today, in 10 years, and in 20 years. When I do that, I realize that there are going to be a very large number of unemployed people in the very near future.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
  17. There's plenty of good economists by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    A whole bunch of them are currently railing against the Republican tax plan as a $1.5 trillion dollar combination boondogle and giveaway to the aristocracy. But our mass media is owned by that aristocracy so unless you're listening to something like Mother Jones or one of the left wing youtubers you wouldn't know that.

    The elites figured out in the 80s they needed think tanks to give them some legitimacy. That's all this is. But if you can managed to bypass the think tanks and watch the stuff coming out of the public Us you'll find plenty talking about how the deck is being stacked against the working class. This is also why our right wing constantly attacks professors and educators.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:There's plenty of good economists by gtall · · Score: 1

      Bullshit. The New York Times and Washington Post, just to name two, have been regularly running articles pointing out the fallacies of the new tax cuts. They even reported on an administration official who said it wasn't a tax system overhaul, but a giveaway. They have also widely reported that the big donors to the Republican Party will stop supporting it if they do not get their tax cuts. And they have reported this explains why a widely detested party with low poll approval is going along with an alleged President with a low poll approval to support a tax cut that few Americans will benefit from.

      They have also reported how some administration dolt gave a speech in front of a group of big industry executives and asked how many were going to use their tax cuts to increase investment. Few raised their hands and he was disappointed.

      Looking out at American business today, it is doing quite well and giving them more money won't cause them to chase new demand because there is no new demand. The mainline press has also reported that companies are likely to use any new money to spend on their investors, not their workers. And there is an unstated assumption that if business taxes are cut, miraculously these companies will bring their offshore money back to the U.S. Why would they do that? It isn't costing them anything to keep it where it is, and they already have enough cash. And the tax cut will give them more cash so they do not need to bring the off-shore money home.

    2. Re:There's plenty of good economists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... giveaway to the aristocracy.

      Just saw an article about Arthur Laffer who invented the Laffer curve and Republican policy that tax-breaks make everyone rich. I did some calculations:

      x*35% = (x+y)*20%
      y=0.75x

      Which is to say, a 15 point tax-cut (35-20) similar to the corporate gift promised by Trump, requires a 75% growth in taxable revenue, to break even. If you want everyone to get rich, it will be much higher. But the Republican party promises (almost) everyone will be $3,000 richer.

      The tax-cuts by Reagan and Bush junior reveal that corporate tax growth is really by -70% of the tax-cuts. Yes, that is a negative sign in front of that growth figure. So, time to math:

      15 points * 70% = 10.5% loss in corporate tax revenue.

      In reality, the Laffer curve hides these facts; 1) Capitalism devolves into a monopoly, where costs of consumption (AKA the price) increase and profits of manufacture increase. (That is, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer.) 2) Increasing the pay of the wealthy, such as CEOs, gives them disproportionate control over what others can say and do.

      Let's not forget a US Republican senator decided to go to Kansas to prove that tax-cuts and 'small government' works. So he reduced income taxes and allowed corporations to pay as individuals. The result was an instantaneous 10% drop in Kansas revenue. To be fair, part of the problem was the state couldn't remove tax loopholes, which would have made an unknown difference. After 6 years of that, even the Kansas republicans demanded more taxes.

      Don't worry, Trump, who not only copied the Kansas tax-cuts for his own policies, he offered a job to that former US republican senator.

    3. Re:There's plenty of good economists by lucm · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. The New York Times and Washington Post, just to name two, have been regularly running articles pointing out the fallacies of the new tax cuts.

      Wait, newspapers that openly promote the liberal agenda are against tax cuts? OMG

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  18. The biggest job loss? by AlanObject · · Score: 1

    The largest losses won't be among tech and factory workers. It will be retail and driving.

    Retail already has big bloody chunks torn out of it by online sales.

    The rush to automated rides, trucks, and personal vehicles is breathless.

    Moral of the story: Find something better to do.

    1. Re:The biggest job loss? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      Moral of the story: Find something better to do.

      Go fishing.

    2. Re:The biggest job loss? by mentil · · Score: 2

      It gets worse. Automated driving will enable new forms of automation not possible before. There are tons of jobs where someone drives to a client location, does X job, then drives back to the office. Humans were necessary to drive there, do X, then drive back. Once the driving is automated, the human will only be needed for X, and beancounters will start thinking "I wonder if we can automate X..."
      First on the chopping block will be moving/loading/unloading type jobs, postal delivery and moving-van type stuff. Later will come meter-readers (if it's cheaper than smart meters), repairmen and similar. Heavily-regulated fields like EMTs will probably come last.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  19. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker by raymorris · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What do these names have in common?

    Smith, Potter, Taylor, Spinner, Weaver, Webster, Dyer, Thatcher, Tyler, Miller, Baker, Cheeseman, Spicer, Cook, Fisher, Carter, Clarke, Skinner

    They are all common jobs that lots of people do, of course. Or were, 100 years ago. They've all pretty much been automated. Of course we could now list 50 jobs that are common today that didn't exist 100 years a good o. In fact, over half of the US workforce works in jobs that didn't exist 100 years ago.

    Yes jobs will be automated, as has been the case since the 1600s. And what's happened for hundreds of years is that as people no longer need to pick cotton, they instead design UIs, or test apps, or maintain automated looks that produce thousands of dollars of fabric per hour. The increased productivity of maintaining the automated look instead of weaving by hand is why median real household income has increased by 500%.

    1. Re:The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    2. Re: The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And homes cost 5000% more so they loose. AI bots will do 99% of jobs. Solution , build space ships aka Battlestar levels, 50trillion py

    3. Re:The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't date from 100 years ago, these names were fixed in the 14th Century or thereabouts.

    4. Re:The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      So what you are saying is that in 100 years common surnames will include Webdev, Phonemonkey and Uberman?

      Actually that last one sounds kinda cool.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re: The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      Appman ( and Appwoman), Featurer, Speccer, Docker, Documan, Ritter, Desigman, Iotter, Squeller, Nosqueller, Javer, Jascriper, Cesser, Huchtemeler, Coder, Decoder, Assembler, Scrummer, Waterfaller, Phonegapper, Manageman,

  20. You could stop abandoning those folks to poverty by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    that would be a good start. Otherwise they're going to get desperate, they're going to get mean and they're going to get organized and it's going to end they way it did last time: World Wars and pogroms against some vulnerable minority.

    We have a solution. It's socialism. Give people the fruits of those machine's labors instead of letting an elite aristocracy monopolize them. I realize it's frustrating to let people have things they didn't 'earn' (funny how it's not when they inherit wealth, but that's something we're taught's OK while we're impressionable kids) but we're either going to get over that or we're going to bow down to our new kings.

    And no, nobody who takes time out of their day to read or post on /. is likely to be joining that aristocracy any time soon. We're working class, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it means we need to start taking care of each other. The aristocracy sure as hell ain't gonna do it.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  21. So Japan's failure is assumed? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1, Funny

    A driving force of Japanese robotics R&D is to solve their elder care problem. Eldercare is certainly in their crosshairs. Perhaps we can export all of our displaced accountants and mortgage bankers to change bedpans.

    Actually, unless someone troubles to risk creating AIs for cooking the books, only honest accountants and bankers really have to worry. Does that mean its not a problem at all?

    1. Re:So Japan's failure is assumed? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Care of the elderly is becoming a problem for most developed nations, as populations stabilize or even begin to fall. Pensions and elderly care provision all relied on a growing population to work, so that one old person's care was paid for by several younger people. Now it's getting to 1:1 or worse, the young don't want to pay any more.

      The basic contract on which most modern societies were built, that you pay for taxes and contributions now and are looked after in old age, is breaking down. Robots may help by reducing care costs and improving quality of life for older people. I don't think it will do enough though, not by a long way.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:So Japan's failure is assumed? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      Yes, though their problem is worse than most as they have been too good at controlling their population.

      But their argument is usually phrased in terms of there not being enough people to provide the care. If real people continue to provide all of the care, then there won't be enough people to do all of the other things necessary to support their society and economy. So, they hope to utilize robots to do things like turn people over in their beds, bathe them, change bedpans, bring them food, help them to the bathroom, etc.

  22. Please automate farming first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then at least those automated out of a job can survive on cheap food.

  23. McKinsey displacement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the study fails to see is that McKinsey will be displaced too. And what a releave that will be for the rest of us!

  24. Dyac. Loom, not look. Automated loom by raymorris · · Score: 1

    That should be "automated loom".

    Loom operators today make about $32,000/year. Rather better than the 10 cents a day Weaver's made.

    1. Re:Dyac. Loom, not look. Automated loom by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Loom operators today make about $32,000/year. Rather better than the 10 cents a day Weaver's made.

      But tomorrow, loom operators will be gone, replaced by intelligent looms that can not only tell when they're having a problem, but solve it as well. That's the fundamental difference in this particular revolution: before, we replaced ten workers with one. Now, we're replacing that one worker with zero workers.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Dyac. Loom, not look. Automated loom by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      10 cents a day for catching mice isn't bad.

      You left out the the thing that belongs to a person called Weaver, so I assumed you meant his cat.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Dyac. Loom, not look. Automated loom by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      It's lucky you didn't write automated loon. Because there are people who would jump on that and make sarcastic quips.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  25. Wrong assumption that displaced are faulty by edgedmurasame · · Score: 1

    They made the mistake of assuming that the displaced are at fault and that nobody else is.

    --
    "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
    1. Re:Wrong assumption that displaced are faulty by mentil · · Score: 2

      Maybe 'fault' is the wrong word, rather that it's the unemployed's responsibility (no matter what) to find employment, and if they can't find work well fuck them because we have ours.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    2. Re:Wrong assumption that displaced are faulty by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Maybe 'fault' is the wrong word, rather that it's the unemployed's responsibility (no matter what) to find employment, and if they can't find work well fuck them because we have ours.

      The question is really whether the masses will rise up before the automated and intelligent (target-seeking) killbots become cheap and ubiquitous. They're already cheap, of course...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  26. But what does the worker give up. by Bruha · · Score: 1

    What if itâ(TM)s a high paying job and the workers replacement job pays a third? Thatâ(TM)s just as bad.

    1. Re:But what does the worker give up. by mentil · · Score: 1

      The obvious solution is to use your last check to buy a robot that will outperform you and send you its income. Then, once you've purchased enough robots, you can open a robo-brothel. Then, pray that Jude Law doesn't catch wind.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  27. Managing people? by Puls4r · · Score: 2

    In my experience, the people we currently having 'managing peole' are usually the least capable of doing so. Just like Human Resources is NOT there to help employees - because they aren't. Of course these jobs that add very little to the final product won't be robotized. For the same reason our congress critters and senators won't let it happen.

    1. Re:Managing people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In my experience, the people we currently having 'managing peole' are usually the least capable of doing so. Just like Human Resources is NOT there to help employees - because they aren't.

      Of course these jobs that add very little to the final product won't be robotized. For the same reason our congress critters and senators won't let it happen.

      Perhaps the "AI Congress" can make better decisions for society...

  28. A bit skeptical by dreamygeek · · Score: 1

    I don't know how it will help the economy in the future considering the huge number of jobless people growing everyday. This is just increase the joblessness ratio. Automation isn't the answer to everything.

  29. Well I'm glad I already have ultraviolet clearence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I love the computer the computer is my friend

  30. Why is there a problem? by no-body · · Score: 0

    If somebody does not do well with what will be coming with this job replacement, he or she is making a mistake, needs to be punished for the mistake to learn from it to do better.

    1. Re: Why is there a problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did uou start with literally nothing? As a baby no one gave you anything. Education, clothes, food, everything you gained on your own? If not, do you think everyone was given rhe same starting points as you? Everyone had same quality education etc? If not then your starting point is defined by luck. Those with bad starting points are more likely to fail in life and you want to punish them just because of that? That is fine by me as long as you know what you are doing and you undestand that you would be nothing without the help of many who made you what you are today.

  31. And how many billions of jobs are automated today? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And how many billions of jobs are automated today? Probably at least 100 billion, depending on how you define "job".

  32. Future Career Options by mentil · · Score: 1

    When I grow up, I wanna be a robot! Daddy says that's where all the jobs are.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  33. Automating everything is self limiting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If everything is truly automated and you layoff all of your employees then who will buy your shit? Eventually it affects so many people that an economy is unsustainable. Perhaps this is where consumerism ends...

  34. In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by BeCre8iv · · Score: 1

    Does insisting on a human being paid to scan my shopping make me the only Luddite on slashdot?

    --
    This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
    1. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by imidan · · Score: 2

      I hate the self-checkout aisle. I'm competent at scanning groceries, but the moment I do something unexpected in the "bagging area" I have to wait for someone to come fix it. I don't know the code number for my produce, so I have to look it up. I have to key it in on a shitty touchscreen. If I bought beer, someone has to come inspect me. I used a reusable bag, and it confused the machine. The whole process takes 5x as long as it would have with a human being. The checker is faster at scanning, has memorized all the produce codes, has an efficient user interface, can check my ID at will, and generally has the entire process together enough in their brain to make it far more efficient. I don't go to the self-checkout anymore.

    2. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I hate the self-checkout aisle.

      They're terrible. And it appears they're not cheaper either.

      The cheapest supermarkets in the UK (Lidl and Aldi) use a small number of well trained staff compared to the large bank of self checkouts and poorly trained staff in the other supemarkets.

      They can reliably scan goods faster than I can pack them, too.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Just because the current incarnation sucks, doesn't mean it will always suck. A lot of the stupidity you go through with the current machine is to prevent mistakes on the part of the customer. Image recognition (e.g. Tensorflow) is already good enough to recognize things about 95% of the time, it won't be too long before it can distinguish produce just as well, or even better than humans. At which point, you would only have problems while buying beer.

      As for the amount of time spent in checkout, you're forgetting the time you spend waiting for customers in front of you. At stores near me, the automated checkout lines are usually empty. I might wait a minute before getting to a machine. Meanwhile, the human checkout lines are packed, sometimes 8 or 10 people. At least 2 of those would be elderly, one would insist on giving the exact change, and the other only has a checkbook. Amongst the rest, one would have food stamps or coupons, which I suspect have some fine print along the lines of "actual value is to be negotiated with the cashier at checkout time" written on them. Another, often a lady with kids, would attempt to use multiple credit cards, all of which are unhappy with her account balance. But yes, when I actually arrive at the cashier, it's usually pretty quick thanks to my insistence on paying in an ordinary manner.

    4. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's because the type of people who shop at Lidl and Aldi are thieving scum and the resultant "shrinkage" would kill their profit margins.

    5. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      "Just because the current incarnation sucks, doesn't mean it will always suck."

      It also doesn't mean that it will improve. The only thing that will bring improvement is competition that gives a better customer experience w/o significantly costing more.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    6. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      "Just because the current incarnation sucks, doesn't mean it will always suck."

      It also doesn't mean that it will improve. The only thing that will bring improvement is competition that gives a better customer experience w/o significantly costing more.

      I don't recall there being a monopoly in this market? In any case, I don't think anyone's ever won a bet against technology improving.

    7. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Simple example for you... There's no monopoly in operating systems, and yet Windows seems to suck more with each iteration.

      There are plenty of other cases...Yahoo, GMail, Facebook and others, who've made the user interface worse. And, that's exactly what we're talking about here.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    8. Re:In Asda-Walmart the customer is the robot. by imidan · · Score: 1

      No, I did think a little bit about waiting for the customers in front of me in line. Of course I've stood behind the little old lady who is searching for a nickel because if she uses the dime in her hand... well, I don't know what happens, because they always search until they find the nickel. I was standing in line when a man's coupon evidently needed clearance from the store manager, the regional director, and the CFO of the grocery chain. For a while the main grocery store I shop at was throwing insufficient funds messages at debit card users regardless of how much money they had in their account, so people had to go over to the ATM to get money (using the same debit card) to pay.

      And, yes, that's a waste of time. But I get to check up on the tabloids a little bit (I miss The Weekly World News) and read about this month's sexy tips on the cover of Cosmo. I can get a package of chewing gum and add it to my stuff. If it takes too long and I get desperately bored, I can look at my phone. I dunno, I guess a little bit of a wait is worth the tradeoff for me against the aggravation of checking out my own groceries. Unless I just have a couple things and I'm in a hurry. Although the checkout machines can sense that and it tempts them to plot against you.

  35. core competencies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ongoing revolution is very different this time. At it's core, is the fact that you're selling to people on the back of debt. In other countries they would be able to recover from that purely through supplying cheaper labour. But labour with no ownership of capital, and capital that can function as labour, means people are likely to lose out. Still, it is fairly far from certain if this will be a bad thing overall. And, i'm very certain that if deployed in countries that have strong labour movements, or factious population, there is less certainty that there would not be strong opposition, i.e. the top 2 economies. But this will have trickle down effects on every other economy in the world before you feel the effects of a non mobile population.

  36. No! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But governments and companies will need to help smooth what could be a rocky transition.

    And I have to either take a pay cut or have more money stolen by jack-booted so-called "IRS" thugs at gunpoint to fund this?

    No way. Let them sink or swim by their own efforts and the power of the market.
    --
    roman_mir

  37. Governments won't be able to smooth anything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By then, neoliberals will have done away with any traces of government, thankyouverymuch.

    (Careful. I *do* make a distinction between Type "A" liberalism, which means letting folks do whatever they want while they don't harm others, and Type "B" liberalism (aka neoliberalism), which means rich people are allowed to do whatever they want, whether it harms others or not. Type "B" is a misunderstanding spread by the Mont Pèlerin Society).

  38. Brushes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But we'll need loads of brushes to clean that coal!

  39. Is that all? by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    The process of computing (i.e adding lots of numbers) has been automated for years, weaving for over a century and grinding flour for several centuries.

    When you consider the number of people that would be needed to replace machines if everything stopped, I wonder how many we'd need?

  40. Birth control to the rescue! by antifoidulus · · Score: 1

    So when it comes to automation replacing jobs, why does the list of things we need more of never include "birth control"? If less humans are needed to handle current workloads, wouldn't one of the coping mechanisms be well, less humans? Maybe because it's not PC and people will accuse you of "genocide", but I think birth control is our last best hope(it's also why the only charities I ever donate to are ones that include birth control, it's not my fault if you cannot breed responsibly, I just want to make sure you have that option)

    1. Re:Birth control to the rescue! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

      >So when it comes to automation replacing jobs, why does the list of things we need more of never include "birth control"?

      Because that view includes the assumption that only the richest people have any inherent value. Even the poorest person has as much right to exist and have children as the richest.

      We should be encouraging a population reduction because we can more easily maintain our lifestyle if we have smaller numbers, not because rich people don't need servants any longer.

    2. Re:Birth control to the rescue! by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      Clue: The wealthiest portion of the population doesn't have kids nearly at the rate of the poor.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    3. Re:Birth control to the rescue! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Noone have a "right to exist". Bitch-Gaia demands and a creature either responds or else. Pure parasites/thieves best drop dead or be put-down. A person justifies their living power every day by productive behavior measured by free-trade exchange. When the individual stops being productive s/he either consumes what surplus they had produced or ... lacking provision they die off leaving the commons robust and the gene-pool stable.

  41. Predicting the past again by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > When you automate a few, or even all, sock factories, the workers can go make sweaters and underwear, etc.

    Too late to make that argument. Sweaters and underwear were automated a long time ago. Along with the production of fabric to start with. As I've pointed out elsewhere on this page, someone keeping an eye on an automated loom has an average salary of $32,000. A weaver made ten cents a day. The more automated the work becomes, the more goods are produced per worker. More goods is more money coming into the factory, is more money to pay the workers.

    I have a friend who "bottles water" for a living. Wholesale gross profit on each bottle of water is a penny or so. Imagine how much she could earn filling bottles manually. If she filled 500 bottles per day, her employer would gross $5. They could pay her $1-$2 / day. In fact "filling bottles" has been fully automated. Her and her half dozen co-workers produce hundreds of thousands of bottles or water every day. That's a decent amount of value produced, so she can make a reasonable paycheck.

    > When you automate everything, the workers won't have that option.

    About half of everything (all jobs) WAS automated in the last hundred years. The same the hundred years before that. For example typesetting is completely automated - it's called desktop publishing. And the advant of desktop publishing (fully automated typesetting) created a bunch of new jobs, which mostly pay more than typesetting did, because "web designer" is more productive work than "typesetter".

    > The entire economy will shift.

    Yep, it'll keep shifting. I was born in the manufacturing economy. I grew up in the service economy. I started my career in the information age. Now I work in the Web 2.0 / data science economy. About every 20-30 years years the economy shifts significantly, and it'll keep doing that as it has for hundreds of years.

    1. Re:Predicting the past again by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      someone keeping an eye on an automated loom has an average salary of $32,000. A weaver made ten cents a day.

      Do you think the cost of living hasn't changed in 200 years, or are you knowingly making a bullshit comparison?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Predicting the past again by gtall · · Score: 1

      Ah, the old argument: I don't need to cut down that tree because it has never fallen on my house before. There are black swan events. You are arguing there are no black swans in economics, but there clearly are.

      Workers do not merely retrain for other jobs, it requires an entire infrastructure. And if the retraining is for more technically competent jobs, good luck getting most of America back in the classroom. This is the same classroom a good portion of them feel it is a badge of honor to disparage. That disparagement has become part of their reward system because all their friends reward them with similar shared attitudes; birds of a feather.

      Also, (as mentioned above) in the past, workers could move sideways into similar jobs. Automation isn't offering any sideways jobs for most of the jobs on the chopping block. It is looking to do away with them wholesale, there won't be much sideways movement because all the sideways will have been automated as well.

      So yeah, there will be new jobs created. But unless you are clairvoyant, you cannot tell us what they will be, or how many they will be, or what quality they will be. So we all we have to do is believe in we're back in Kansas again.

    3. Re:Predicting the past again by xvan · · Score: 1

      The guy in charge of a production line gets a higher salary than the one doing the job manually because of the costs of stopping the production.

    4. Re:Predicting the past again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      most skilled people won't have a problem they will find something to move over to with a bit of retraining, and are likely more perceptive to being trained as they have gone through it before. At least for now, someone still needs to design, program, install, and maintain the machines, and doing that may not be too different than what some of them currently do, so these people will likely transition to that.

      it is the minimum wage repetitive task unskilled workers that are screwed. luckily they are already fairly cheap so it may take a bit of time before the automation becomes cheaper than they are.

    5. Re:Predicting the past again by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The guy in charge of a production line gets a higher salary than the one doing the job manually because of the costs of stopping the production.

      The guy anywhere but at the top has been getting a smaller and smaller share of the profits literally throughout history, and as a consequence his share is now smaller than it ever has been before.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:Predicting the past again by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      ... good luck getting most of America back in the classroom.

      Especially if they have to pay for that retraining themselves. Especially if they don't have an income because their job has been automated out from under them.

    7. Re:Predicting the past again by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      More goods is more money coming into the factory, is more money to pay the workers.

      Sure it's more money that 'could' be paid to workers but that hasn't been happening at all. Common worker's salaries have not been increasing along with corporate productivity, nowhere close.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  42. Riddle me this by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations.

    If occupation A is automated, and all the ex-As move into similar occupation B, isn't it pretty likely that B is going to be next - by the middle of next week, probably?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Riddle me this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations.

      If occupation A is automated, and all the ex-As move into similar occupation B, isn't it pretty likely that B is going to be next - by the middle of next week, probably?

      And as AI continues it's rapid rise, As and Bs will find that they also can't move-up into the next level occupation.

      It's funny watching many commentators take an attitude that implies they won't be affected, just the dumb minions. Well, AI is coming for you also.

  43. Finally, a use for social justice warriors by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    How much job automation will be driven by corporate legal and HR when they realize that a robot cannot be accused of sexual harassment? This will push automation even into the highly "social" jobs that involve a lot of interfacing with either customers or other employees, because these are the most legally vulnerable.

  44. Surprised we are ignoring this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think much of the jobs being eliminated by automation is lower skilled jobs. Repetitive jobs that human's do not find enjoyable and have lot's of turnover. Its why the trucking industry and mundane order filler jobs for example are focused on using automation. But the real negative is what are all these lower skilled people do other then end up on some sort of government supplement? How will this affect the economy? Sadly the beneficiary of all this is that people like Jeff Bezo at Amazon who directly benefit from automation at the expense of jobs for people who by the way will always have a portion of the population who are low skilled.

    1. Re: Surprised we are ignoring this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AI can already beat doctors in certain areas. Your info is very outdated.

  45. Who Knew by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Who knew that that many hookers would be put out of work?!?

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  46. The actual report by RandCraw · · Score: 4, Informative
  47. If there are fewer jobs... by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

    ...who's going to have the money to buy the stuff that these robots make? What will happen to our consumerism and advertising driven economies then? Will /. be able to survive? Is this how the robot apocalypse will be, i.e. an economic depression rather than Skynet and killer androids?

    --
    Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
    1. Re:If there are fewer jobs... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      ...who's going to have the money to buy the stuff that these robots make? What will happen to our consumerism and advertising driven economies then? Will /. be able to survive? Is this how the robot apocalypse will be, i.e. an economic depression rather than Skynet and killer androids?

      The eternal question. In the past, automation allowed the displaced to shift into new jobs. Whether that will be the case in this upcoming situation is not clear, since the goal is not to make things cheaper or better, but to eliminate jobs.

      This situation is not going to be stopped, but there seems to be precious little intelligent discussion on what will happen. There are many people who through lack of ambition, or mental makeup, are not capable of moving up to a higher-tier career. What do we do with them. Some of the possibilities are distinctly unpleasant. A person who is performing at their peak that can be replaced by a robot best worth is the components of their bodies.

      Some folks might be able to make the shift up when faced with termination, but even then they will be in competition with many people vying for fewer jobs.

      The folks who use the automation to eliminate jobs and increase profits are not necessarily going to realize those profits, as the menial capability robots are going to decrease the potential customer base. As the automation works it's way up the food chain, there will be a tipping point. How many useless humans can be supported in a system which goal is to eliminate their means of supporting themselves?

      There are some rather obvious limits to the ability of the Government to support these now useless people, especially given the also obvious shrinking tax base. That situation is a positive feedback loop.

      Unfortunately, our soundbite world won't allow for much more than one liner "solutions" to a very complex situation.

      Watch - in someone's answer, the results of this will somehow be jobs for more people. I've never seen any projected job but foe someone keeping the robots working. Somehow a Restaurant with 20 employees will be replaced by a manager and a person that fixes the robots as needed. I'm curious what the other 18 are going to do.

      I mean this is happening whether we like it or not. But it's happening with no planning.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:If there are fewer jobs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Half the people who can afford eating-out demand superior human contact vis' food preparation. We aren't talking McMac here, but Michelen 1/2/3* and 100x more "guild" diners with local specialties. The human food preparation skill ... like live music, dance, stage and lecture skill is defined by meat-land human talent & training. No mechano-substitute will sufficient nor have they been sufficient in 5000 years of foodies/1st-nighters/academics ... etcetcetc . I'll painfully pay for exceptional human service - - blood sweat & tears - - but pay not a nickel for byteboi masturbation fantasy. Keep yo burger-shitting robo; let bowleg proles suck mechano-GMA-halushka !

  48. But let me guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They won't automate away the "ruling class" jobs like accountant, lawyer, CEO, politician.... Oh no no, this requires such refined and arcane high intelligence, it can't be automated!

    But YOUR job sure can!

    1. Re:But let me guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Robolawyers already exist, so robopoliticians can't be too far behind (Vote Bender/Fry 2050). Accounting will probably take a bit longer, since the nature of the work is less purely mathematical and more parsing of language. CEOs will be automated the second shareholders realize that the job can be done for much cheaper and with less chance at making boneheaded statements.

  49. hold on by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1
    "The report says that 39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations."

    Doesn't that mean that automation will shift fairly easily into those folks new Jerbs?

    Not to worry folks, we'll all be bosses.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  50. A "rocky" transition? We're fucked. by geekmux · · Score: 1

    "39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations. Globally, up to 800 million workers could be displaced."

    Translation: 800 million jobs globally are being removed by automation, and only 25 - 50% of them are coming back.

    Perhaps we can stop with the "could be a rocky transition" bullshit already and wake up. Automation and good-enough AI is going to be a massive disruptor to human employment, it's coming faster than anyone can predict, and we don't have a fucking clue as to how to resolve that problem.

    And please don't tell me UBI is the solution when taxation is the obvious answer to fund it. You can't even get the wealthy elite to fucking pay taxes today, what the hell makes you think you're going to actually be able to collect taxes for the global welfare state of unemployable humans 20 years from now? Simple answer is, you won't. UBI will remain a pipe dream for the unemployable masses.

    The future looks dark unless we figure out a way to solve for Greed, and eradicate this battle between the 1% and the 99%. Trillionaire is not a metric of success for the human race.

  51. Re:And how many billions of jobs are automated tod by geekmux · · Score: 1

    And how many billions of jobs are automated today? Probably at least 100 billion, depending on how you define "job".

    For the last 200+ years, our consistent answer to every human that was displaced by some form of automation was "go get an education."

    Since automation and good-enough AI are now coming for educated jobs, please stop ignorantly looking at history as if our tried-and-true wisdom will continue to be valid.

    50 years from now, there won't be much of a reason to even educate a human for the purposes of employment.

  52. You've missed the point - a thought experiment by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A thought experiment. In a nation of 330 million, if there are only 150 million jobs, are the unemployed freeloaders? Really think about it before you answer.

    The new thing that's happening is that here soon, production will massively outpace labor. It's a new state of affairs that human beings haven't seen yet. There isn't an -ism to describe it accurately. It wouldn't be capitalism or communism, both are predicated on scarcity. Given a limited amount of valuable goods, how best to equitably distribute them? Remove the "limited" from the equation and they suddenly don't apply.

    So what would you do if that were the case? Let's say that automation does eliminate half the jobs in America. There simply isn't anything for you to do. What would you do? Would you hold to your "argh it looks like socialism so it is bad" philosophy and not accept UBI? Would you starve before giving in?

    Because it is coming, you know. And it doesn't have jack shit to do with any political left/right point of view. Right now it's pure capitalism driving this. As soon as UPS is able to replace 100,000 drivers with an average salary of 75,000 a year with computers - it will. The competitive advantage it would gain would be 7.5 billion in saved revenue. Think they won't do that?

    And every other industry that can, will. If UPS does it, FedEx will have to if they wish to remain competitive. And so on.

    What will you do then?

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      And it doesn't have jack shit to do with any political left/right point of view. Right now it's pure capitalism driving this.

      Pure capitalism is a conservative value, and the antithesis of liberalism. That's how we know that the bought-and-paid for democratic party ain't liberal. It's just more liberal than the wholly conservative republican party.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by apoc.famine · · Score: 2

      The competitive advantage it would gain would be 7.5 billion in saved revenue.

      Wrong. Because that 7.5 billion dollars is being EXTRACTED from the US economy. That 7.5 billion dollars used to pay for houses, gas, food, cars, and everything else those drivers needed for their daily life. That money was paid to other people, who bought packages that needed to be delivered.

      Take that money out of the economy, and you don't get 100% of that money back. You lose a percentage of your customers, because they don't have money anymore. That's the real, fundamental problem with the race to the bottom.

      And every other industry that can, will. If UPS does it, FedEx will have to if they wish to remain competitive. And so on. What will you do then?

      This is a really interesting question. Because even if they reduce their prices to minimal profit, if you don't have money, you don't have money. And at this end-game, minimum wage isn't an answer, because there's a sizable chance that there just isn't a job for you to do. Sure, minimum wage rises to $40/hr, because we're at 50% employment, and that needs to cover a family since only half of them will be working. What happens when the family next door has 2 jobs and there isn't one for your family?

      UBI is one answer, but I'm not convinced that it will really work. We've based our cultural values around being productive members of society. While you are correct that 50% of the population not having jobs doesn't make them freeloaders, at the moment, culturally, they would be. I think it would be easier for us to return to the make-work programs that got us out of the great depression rather than do UBI.

      Civic beautification, cultural expression, arts, community engagement, child development and care....there are lots of places where we could pay people to do something that doesn't require a ton of skills, but still something that would have some value to the community. I think that would be a far easier pill to swallow than UBI. Add the bureaucratic overhead of managing the make-work programs at the state and local level, and you're well on your way to creating enough jobs to fill in for all those lost to automation and machine learning.

      Is this the american dream? Nope. But I think we realistically need to be having these conversations well ahead of the time when we lay off 3.5 million truck drivers, ten times that many warehouse workers, half of all office workers, all legal clerks, etc., etc., etc. And those days are not that far away.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    3. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1

      Well, I didn't mean "pure capitalism" to mean a kind of Ayn Rand free-for-all, I just meant that capitalism is currently the prime mover for automation.

      The truly funny bit is that in the light of your statement, it would be the conservatives that will wind up pushing the country into a socialist looking UBI.

      --
      Weaselmancer
      rediculous.
    4. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The truly funny bit is that in the light of your statement, it would be the conservatives that will wind up pushing the country into a socialist looking UBI.

      History is replete with examples of excessive oppression leading to heads rolling in the dust. Somehow, our corporate masters have either avoided reading that chapter of history, or simply believe that it can't happen to them.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wrong. Because that 7.5 billion dollars is being EXTRACTED from the US economy. That 7.5 billion dollars used to pay for houses, gas, food, cars, and everything else those drivers needed for their daily life.

      You are correct, of course. Replacing those workers would immediately return 7.5 billion to UPS, minus a percentage of people/customers newly unemployed that would no longer be able to afford their services. This is where UBI enters the conversation.

      UBI is one answer, but I'm not convinced that it will really work. We've based our cultural values around being productive members of society.

      Also correct. As it currently stands, a great deal of America bases a great deal of their personal self-image around their ability to hold a job. I will say this though - cultural values can change, and rapidly if they have to. A brief review of the last 100 years of German history can show that.

      Is this the american dream? Nope. But I think we realistically need to be having these conversations well ahead of the time when we lay off 3.5 million truck drivers, ten times that many warehouse workers, half of all office workers, all legal clerks, etc., etc., etc. And those days are not that far away.

      Bless you. You are the only other person who is worried about the same thing I'm worried about. This exactly. We are making exactly zero preparations for this. It's inevitable at this point and all of society is simply ignoring it. Don't tell me they don't want to replace 3.5 million truck drivers - they absolutely do. You don't make a R&D project like this one on a whim. I think the economy - just on trucking alone - could tank. Add to that all the other easily automated jobs and it's a disaster. And nobody is even talking about being prepared for it.

      I'm not 100% sure UBI would be a fix either. Maybe another solution would be to have everyone retire at 35, and instead of calling it UBI we call it early pension. Or something. I don't know what would actually work either. But it's a problem we're going to have to solve, and soon.

      --
      Weaselmancer
      rediculous.
    6. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      What makes you think that prices will fall, even if the cost of producing things lowered by 90%?

    7. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      Hate to tell you this, but there's no difference between either party.

    8. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      Maybe another solution would be to have everyone retire at 35, and instead of calling it UBI we call it early pension. Or something.

      I was trapped in a multi-hour drive with a co-worker the other day, and we talked about this. One thing we both noted is that not encouraging old people to retire is a triple-whammy on the economy. Not only are they likely making a lot of money, they're likely hoarding it because they are worried about late-life medical costs, and they're taking up a job that one or more younger people desperately need.

      One 70 year old is likely making 2-3x what a 25 year old would make.

      This is a horrific trend I'm seeing with a bunch of my friends who pursued PhDs. (I bailed half-way through mine, and am grateful every day that I did.) Professors are sticking around into their 80s. Because why retire when you are still making money, and don't have to work too hard? But that salary could fund a couple of researchers, who are instead doing something outside their field, disappointed and disillusioned, and potentially in huge debt due to their education.

      35 might be a bit young, but lets let everyone 55 and older retire, play golf, and be grandparents. They don't need to be millionaires, just give them $40k a year and some health insurance, and let them build up society with their knowledge, skills, and goodwill. Garden the sides of the street, watch the grand-kids, host a bake-sale, man a food-shelf. There is zero good reason to make people work into their 70s and 80s. If they want to? Sure, go ahead. But lets make the default not doing that.

      It would be better for everyone.

      That's a pretty easy start, and I'm idealistic enough to want to wonder how it would be controversial to most people. Do you hate grandparents? Do you want kids to grow up in the care of the state? Can we not agree to at least let old people be old people, and not work them to death?

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    9. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bless you. You are the only other person who is worried about the same thing I'm worried about. This exactly. We are making exactly zero preparations for this. It's inevitable at this point and all of society is simply ignoring it.

      Oh, you two are by far not the only ones worried about this. I have already argued that UBI or something similar is the only answer, and neither of you were involved in any of those threads. I won't go into the specifics, but basically UBI addresses the apportioning of resources without completely restructuring society and allows for incentives for those that wish to and can contribute.

      In short, the drivers you're talking about are a mere tip of the iceberg. There's virtually all transportation involved folks, food processing, farming, food service, even a large chunk of lawyering and doctoring, etc etc etc. Anything that doesn't require creativity nor intelligence will be automated within the next 20-30 years. Globally. Let that sink in and think of what all that does to our current concept of society and economics. The real limiters are raw supplies and the creativity to make new things in sustainable ways and eventually, energy.

    10. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People who say this think they are clever.

    11. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Hate to tell you this, but there's no difference between either party.

      There are numerous differences, most of them in the human rights department. There are also numerous similarities, most of them in the area of corporate donorship and the predictable results. Don't imagine, though, that their similarities make them "the same". They have some unfortunate things in common, but they also diverge on important points.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    12. Re:You've missed the point - a thought experiment by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      They diverge in what they say, but not so much in what they do.

  53. Wow, What a Relief! by pipingguy · · Score: 1

    "39 million to 73 million jobs in the U.S. could be destroyed, but about 20 million of those displaced workers can be shifted fairly easily into similar occupations"

    So... best case is only 19 million formerly employed people out of work permanently and only 20 million precariously employed in newly-created, probably make-work, likely government-subsidized, low-paid jobs (unless of course, these new jobs are exported to $5/hour places overseas) for which there will be intense, ruthless competition that will bring out the worst in people.

    No problem, then, all OK!

  54. The Future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bite My Shiny Metal Ass MeatBags!

  55. Workers who are willing to develop new skills by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Workers who are willing to develop new skills should be able to find new jobs."

    False.

    There are no jobs that require no experience.

    People routinely go back to school, learn new things and then get rejected for not having experience in the new role.

    Out of touch.

  56. Re:Creating new 509 million prostitution jobs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Service sector jobs like prostitution are always an option...

  57. It doesn't matter in this case (or that one.) by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    Baloney. Soviet Union had many free loaders. So it does matter.

    The Soviet Union didn't fall because of freeloaders. The Soviet Union fell because it was focused upon spending an unsustainable amount of money on a non-income generating endeavor, specifically its military.

    In any case, the Soviets didn't have pervasive automation, which is the case we're talking about here — so even if you were right that freeloaders brought the country down (which you are not) you're just handwaving about irrelevancies.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  58. Actually no by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    We've long since got automatic scripts that write news stories. If you read a story about a bump in the stock market or something a baseball game chances are a computer wrote that.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  59. I don't want robots making my food. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    ..and I'm far from alone in that. If I go to a restaurant, any sort of restaurant, I want a human being making my food, not some automated machine. Otherwise I may as well just stay home and eat food I prepare myself.

    1. Re:I don't want robots making my food. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      If I go to a restaurant, any sort of restaurant, I want a human being making my food, not some automated machine.

      I try to eat real food, but sometimes I just drive through a burger. I would actually prefer that my food be made by a machine, so long as that machine is intelligently designed to self-sanitize. That would put it considerably ahead of many fast food workers, who I very much do not want to come into contact with any part of my dining experience.

      If I am going into a restaurant and sitting down, I want a human to at least look my food over for signs of machine-related trauma — or more likely, contamination with metal shavings, fragments of plastic parts, or lubricating oils. However, if I am getting the food out of a window now, I might as well get it from a machine.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:I don't want robots making my food. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      If I'm going out to eat, why would I want to pay a premium price for some machine to cook a steak for me? If I pay a premium price for a pizza (and I do, because I need gluten-free unless I want to get sick), why should I pay that premium price for some shitty machine to make it? Also what's going to go along with all this is the already-present trend to try to eliminate waitstaff at restaurants; if I go out to a restaurant, and pay so much more money than making food myself at home, I want human waitstaff taking my order, serving my food to me, and making sure I've got everything I need. Very often I make the whole experience fun for myself and for the waiter/waitress. If all I'm going to be doing is paying a shitload of money for a steak, but all I'm going to do the whole time is interact with machines, then why should I even bother? I may as well stay home and cook a steak for myself and pay a fraction. I'm not even sure cutting the price of eating out down to a fraction would make it worth the trouble to get dressed to eat out, go somewhere, etc, instead of just staying home. But you also have to remember they're not going to get rid of human help and replace them with machines so they can lower prices, oh no, they're going to do it to make more profit, so the prices will stay the same -- or maybe even get higher. What's the point, then? Also do you really have much faith in the idea that anyone is going to monitor the machines to make sure they're actually clean, and that they're not screwing up? Or, more likely, you'll get more or less the same quality (or lack thereof) as you were getting, but it'll be some crappy machine responsible, instead of a human. Again, if that's the direction things go, why even bother? I'd rather stay home at that point and just make my own food.

    3. Re:I don't want robots making my food. by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Where I'm going to have trouble is if they expect me to enter my own order instead of telling it to a live human. They don't pay me so why should I work for them?

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    4. Re:I don't want robots making my food. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      If I'm going out to eat, why would I want to pay a premium price for some machine to cook a steak for me?

      Answer, you won't. The competition will be fierce, and it will basically come down to who's got the steak you want to eat at the price you want to pay, because the robot is going to do a good job of cooking your steak every time. Most people will never see the guy cooking the steaks, and it doesn't matter even slightly whether it's a guy or a gal or a tentacled alien — or a robot. You're paying to sit down in a dark room and have a steak appear before you, and to leave without doing the dishes.

      In the longer term, cooking robots of some type will become ubiquitous, and everyone who is not very poor will have one. They'll be able to eat whatever they have ingredients for, and someone or something else will cook it for them. There's already some projects which basically do this for limited types of food, which are not very expensive to purchase or to implement oneself.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:I don't want robots making my food. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      because the robot is going to do a good job of cooking your steak every time

      [Citation needed]

    6. Re:I don't want robots making my food. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Where I'm going to have trouble is if they expect me to enter my own order instead of telling it to a live human. They don't pay me so why should I work for them?

      How's about you enter your own order in an app before you even get there, and your food is ready at the "precise" moment you arrive (within a small and acceptable window, that is.) And no human screws it up, unless that human is you. The app will of course remember your prior orders, so you can simply repeat them. Since most people tend to order more or less the same things repeatedly, this ought to cover most orders...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  60. I don't believe you by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    The way we're going, by 2030 we may living in caves again.

    What makes you think the caves will be any more livable than anywhere else? Less'n you treat 'em like space ships, of course, but rock tends towards porosity. How much epoxy are you planning to stockpile?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  61. Re:A "rocky" transition? We're fucked. by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    You can't even get the wealthy elite to fucking pay taxes today, what the hell makes you think you're going to actually be able to collect taxes for the global welfare state of unemployable humans 20 years from now? Simple answer is, you won't. UBI will remain a pipe dream for the unemployable masses.

    If enough of the wealthy are actually put out by the masses of dying humans, then they'll be arsed to do something. That will happen eventually, but in the interim there will be a whole lot of awfulness.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  62. AI.. Them first. You Last. by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

    If they REALLY wanted to be liked and constructive..They would start with automating the house. Like doing dishes, making the bed, preparing meals, doing laundry, windows, floors, carpets, walking the dog, cleaning and refilling the litter box, painting, repairing, etc.. Probably not enough money for the greedy corporations.. Instead they got to fill their pockets $$$ with the most lucrative, easy to steal jobs.. So few constructive things with AI.. sad.

  63. Re:Creating new 509 million prostitution jobs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Service sector jobs like prostitution are always an option...

    Not for long, thanks to Japan.

  64. Displacement and angst by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    I think what the bulk of the "sky's not falling" folks seem to be missing is what really happened in the past. We automated jobs that the average human could do, and they then moved on to other jobs that were, at that time, not possible or economical to automate.

    I agree. There's also a dose of "this never happened before, so it can't happen now" going on.

    When I can replace the average human on any given task with a system that can do it better, faster, and/or cheaper, what does that human do now?

    Yes, that's going to cause a major cultural shift all by itself. The obvious: have sex, eat, drink and be merry is going to be very disruptive to those whose worldview tells them that they only have significance as providers and contributors, working. Particularly if they're not well educated, formally or otherwise.

    It's an interesting time to be living in. :/

    the huge problem doesn't start when it's every job that can be done better - just enough jobs that the number left are insufficient to allow everyone to have a job.

    Precisely. That's when it starts. But it'll get worse. A lot worse. If the social safety net isn't there, or our society hasn't accommodated these events some other way, it'll get bloody.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  65. Who will buy the products robots/AI build? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who will be buying all the products or services that our future robotic/AI will produce? Seems advanced robotics/AI will cause capitalism to collapse or at least shiver a bit. Where's the tipping point when there aren't enough customers for the products?

  66. Skepticism and confidence by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    I'm skeptical. I think that is a looooooong way off.

    I think if you actually look at what's going on, you'll see it's non-linear and goes in fits and starts, which makes it very hard to predict in terms of "in N years, X consequences arrive."

    However, once you can see the tanks on the horizon, one should really start thinking about what is to be done when you get there, regardless of if you know there are easily passible open fields, or difficult to navigate swamps, between here or there... or not.

    Look how fast incandescent light bulbs went away after being in constant use for some time. Look how few years those awful curly fluorescents held on until LEDs came along. Look how fast mechanical calculators went under with the advent of the microprocessor (or even just the ALU.)

    Fits and starts. Non-linearity. Surprise technologies. Sometimes the stuff you can see, that you're inclined to make predictions from, isn't good enough, because more stuff will be arriving before your predicted time / event idea jells. Stuff just up and suddenly evaporates. Payphones, for instance. Steam engines and commercial sailing ships. CRTs. etc. But generally, these types of things give way to something even more efficacious. Which causes progress that depends on the technology in question to accelerate.

    We can be sure that if what we see now isn't going to be "the thing" to leverage our predictions, something else, probably even more effective, will replace it. So when what we see rings an alarm bell... we should pay attention.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  67. 7y by bigpat · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately socialists and communists have pushed to define a "free market" as pretty much the opposite of what it is supposed to mean.

    A free market isn't a free market if labor costs are pushed to near zero and people are forced to work for someone for survival. That is slavery.

    Or if either buyers or sellers get to essentially dictate the terms because kof monopoly of essential goods or services that is not a free market.

    Fraud, theft, threat of force are all things that need regulation and policing in the market place.

    Balanced with an understanding that regulation and use of force to enforce those regulations are a necessary evil.

    1. Re:7y by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately socialists and communists have pushed to define a "free market" as pretty much the opposite of what it is supposed to mean.

      Is that what they're calling republicans these days?

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:7y by bigpat · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately socialists and communists have pushed to define a "free market" as pretty much the opposite of what it is supposed to mean.

      Is that what they're calling republicans these days?

      Yes, Republican and Democrats alike seem so entangled in various special interests that they define the "free market" in both positive and negative ways however they find convenient to make political hay without regard to what it actually means to try and have a free market and police it effectively.

      Democrats largely seem to focus on what they perceive as lack of regulation in the market today... while Republicans focus on over regulation. In reality the market in the US is highly regulated by Federal, State, Local and even psuedo-Independent groups that have some delegated government powers. So Democrats are mistaken when they call for "more regulation" and Republicans are mistaken when they call for "less regulation"... what we need is better regulation and consistent enforcement to create a more free market.

      Many of the ills and imbalances of the market are due to poorly crafted regulations, and poor enforcement of those regulations that undermine it being an effective free market. One one side people see these as the fault of "the free market", on the other they see the problems as being the result of regulations and to one extreme they don't see the need for policing of any rules.

      In some ways both sides are right and both sides are wrong, but still, the point should be that an idealized free market is one where goods, services and currency are traded freely with the simplest possible sets of rules that can actually be enforced in a fair and equitable way. An ideal free market is the ideal way that goods, services and money are traded in a society that values freedom and free will. A free market is based on informed free will and choice and not coercion, fraud and manipulation.

      We see some of the problems... Lack of effective and fair anti-Trust regulations where for some goods and services that are necessities and there is no choice in the marketplace due to anti-competitive collusion and market manipulation. Corporations given legal structure and standing by the government allowed to grow in size and scope such that they control too large a portion of the market. Court enforcement of fraudulent contracts such as those with Terms of Service that require arbitration using arbitrators hired by the service provider outside the courts without any effective court oversight of the obvious conflict of interests. Enforcement of ambiguous contracts that provide prices after the service is rendered like those of providers of medical services that charge prices double or triple what other customers are paying without providing those prices up front before non-emergency services are rendered. You can't have a free market without at least some price transparency, at the very least disclosure of prices to the person you are selling some good or service to.

      It isn't lack of regulations or over regulation that causes these issues, it is poorly constructed regulations and lack of enforcement.

  68. Let's think about that by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    When you drive down the cost of goods and services, you drive up the value of currency. As currency is more valuable, people will have a higher demand for things.

    And those things will be produced by automation.

    As demand rises, so will supply.

    And said supply will be provided by automation.

    As supply rises, so will need for more jobs.

    And more automation will fill those jobs, because it will be less expensive and more reliable and considerably less troublesome on many other fronts.

    No arguing, no sick days, no limits on shift time, no shovel-leaning, no "had to take my kid to the whatever" outages, no "whoops, I forgot that step" events, no "I want a raise", no "we're unionizing", no "dude, did you shower today?" events, no rudeness to customers, no sexual harassment lawsuits, no unemployment claims, no injury-on-the-job claims, no "I got stuck in traffic" events, no haters post-inter/intra-office-romance events, no surfing the net on company time, no "you promoted them when I wanted you to promote me" events, no "trained employee took off and went to work for competitor" events... you get the idea. Why would anyone want to hire a person if they didn't absolutely have to?

    Yes those jobs will require different skills but they will exist.

    And those skills will be supplied by automation.

    In addition, niche economies will erupt for things that are handmade and not automated.

    Yes, perhaps. Also for things where demand is very, very low. But that won't affect the overall picture significantly. One must, just for starters, wonder what the economic mechanism is for an unemployed person to be obtaining handmade niche items without a complete restructuring of the economy. Human service is another area that can't be automated. If you want a human service, you'll have to find a way to convince someone to supply that. You're unemployed, though. How will you do that?

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  69. managers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The authors don't expect automation will displace jobs involving managing people..."
    Those will be precisely some of the jobs to go first, it's just that mid-level managers writing those reports can't or don't want to imagine it.

    Here's a quote from the CEO of Nordea, currently planning increase automation and cut jobs:
    "So when it comes to the bank’s planned job cuts, that means “the ones who are mostly hit are middle to higher-level management, because those layers aren’t needed, or shouldn’t be,” von Koskull said.
    See here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/banker-pay-will-probably-fall-when-robots-take-over-nordea-says