This Was the Year the Robot Takeover of Service Jobs Began (gizmodo.com)

merbs writes: Out of the three major sectors of the economy -- agriculture, manufacturing, and service -- two are already largely automated. Farm labor, which about half the American workforce used to do, now comprises around 2 percent of American jobs. And we all know the rust belt song and dance, beat out to outsourcing and mechanization. Which is largely why some 80 percent of all American jobs are service jobs. And this year, quietly but in the open, the robots and their investors came for them, too.

There's a case to be made that 2018 is the year automation took its biggest lunge forward toward our largest pool of human labor: Amazon opened five cashier-less stores; three in Seattle, one in Chicago, and one in San Francisco. Self-ordering kiosks invaded fast food and franchise restaurants in a big way. Smaller robot-centric outfits like the long-awaited auto-burger joint Creator opened, too, and so did a number of others.

In Las Vegas, our service job mecca, hotels' and casinos' widespread plans for automation in everything from bartending to waitstaff to hotel work led one of the city's most powerful hospitality unions to the brink of a 50,000-person strike last summer before a successful negotiation was reached... Combined, they act as a set of markers on a trendline we can no longer ignore. We face the prospect of major upheaval in the last dependable pool of jobs we've got.

Comments

And the big question must be...

[bill.pev]

What happens when labor has no value? Or, when all that matters is capital?
How will people earn respect .. to say nothing of provide for their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?

Please reply with your ideas, ideally without trolling. I would especially like to hear anything beyond the extremes of Death Universal Basic Income. Neither of these allow for self-respect.

Re:And the big question must be...

[Anonymous Coward]

ideally without trolling.

I see that you are new to the internet. Welcome!

The problem seems intractable. In the past, we expected people to move up the knowledge curve as technology undermined the bottom. Now, technology is moving up the curve, and people will not in mass numbers be capable of moving further up to outpace it.

Slow motion social collapse, possibly. Or maybe there will be some novel thing to come in and provide jobs only humans can do for billions. However that does not seem so very likely, and nobody has identified that thing yet, so it better hurry itself up.

Re:MAGA bich

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really... but weren't you ridiculous "conservative" idiots clamoring and crying about "picking winners and losers" just a couple years back? $5 billion to employ a couple thousand (underpaid..) construction workers is about as smart as paying Soy and Pork producers to sit on their unsellable wares because you wanted to pick a publicity fight with China (and then cave anyway).

You really need to get back to your "invisible hand" bullshit arguments, those were much more entertaining.

Before the "Whip buggy manufacturers" comments....

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Before the "Whip buggy manufacturers" comments start pouring in, I got three questions for those posting them: "When are your replacement jobs going to be available?", "Will those replacement jobs pay enough for people to live on?", and "Will the vast majority of people be given the education they need to perform those jobs?"

If the answers to those questions involve the words "In ten years", "Why would we pay that much?", "No, pay for it yourself", or just "No" then you have some thinking to do. You cannot expect to upend the vast majority's ability to provide for themselves, provide no replacement, and expect people to go along with it. They will see it for what it is: A massive power and wealth transfer from them to you, that will impoverish them and their children for generations. They will see that, and they will fight you over it.

Yes, you may counter with "But death drones, advanced military training / equipment, and wealth", but those people will be making a choice of not how to live, but how to die. Given the choice of "Go down fighting" vs. "Starve to death / die of dehydration or sickness", many will take the "Go down fighting" option for the sole glimmer of hope, the hope of living and being better off regardless as to how small those chances may be, it provides over the idea of waiting to die.

So I have one question for you "Where's those easy to get regardless of qualification service center jobs, Mr. Automation?" "Where are they?" Until you can answer that question, you have a problem, and soon to be blood, on your hands.

Always my same question on these stories.

[WolfgangVL]

And how tall does the mountain of machine-made-hamburgers get before the machine realizes nobody has the money to buy them?

A very big change is right on the horizon, but I don't think anybody can even comprehend the consequences.

My solution? \
Human sized hampster wheels to generate the power for the machines. Automation AND green power.