No jobs here... move on

[GTP]

 

[mmerry]

Am I the only one thinking that it just proves how much companies want to get rid of employees.

 

[Porthos]

Am I the only one thinking that it just proves how much companies want to get rid of employees.

Of course, labor is a retailer's largest expense. But for now, that labor is still in the back of the house stocking shelves.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Ding dong, do you hear that?

It's the future... and everyone on this board is part of it. Our job is to build robots that eliminate jobs. That's what technology does by the way... this is not a new thing, nor should it be unexpected. Fighting it is irrational.

Instead, you should be thinking about how we restructure society so we can take advantage of all this new free time we have, instead of insisting we consign poor souls to the hell that is a retail counter.

 

[mmerry]

True, it is the future. My question is what are going to be the new jobs? There is that constant dumb beat of "Learn to Code". Well, there can only be so many coders. I am truly interested in the question and not trying to create a pitched battle. I just don't see as many open jobs out there as there are people who will need them.

 

[Sky-Knight]

True, it is the future. My question is what are going to be the new jobs? There is that constant dumb beat of "Learn to Code". Well, there can only be so many coders. I am truly interested in the question and not trying to create a pitched battle. I just don't see as many open jobs out there as there are people who will need them.

Self driving trucks is an instant 25% unemployment to the US economy with no reasonable means to undo it. So yeah... we have to adapt our form of capitalism to work in a space where people aren't working because there is no place for them to work. We have to find uses for people beyond the mundane... and we have to accept that good people can be "lazy" and still be "human".

But if you say this too loudly in the wrong circles, you'll be branded a pinko commie and assaulted or worse.

I think a great place to start is public access to higher education. We need to make it cheaper for the individual to get the education / training they need to career jump.

 

[britechguy]

I just don't see as many open jobs out there as there are people who will need them.

Bing, bing, bing!! We have a winner!!

Automation is very rapidly bringing the day where there will be, and will continue to be, way more people than there are jobs as we know them today.

A tectonic shift in how economies work, and in the distribution of the resources required to "keep living, and reasonably," is going to have to come into existence.

The concept of "making a living" through one's own labor (whether physical or mental) is going to have to change. That, or there is going to have to be a change in societies around the world that consigns the majority of humanity to squalor, starvation, and death without a bit of compunction about that.

As for me and my house, even though I'll be in the ground soon enough, we're hoping for a reconceptualization of how the wealth of societies gets distributed. The alternative is a dystopian hell, and one that will not appeal to the moral sensibilities of decent people.

 

[MDD1963]

Did not a wealthy politician or two imply that anyone can take a quick one or two week 'coding camp' and learn to code? Is it not about as easy as shoveling coal?

 

[britechguy]

Is it not about as easy as shoveling coal?

Yes. But if you've ever been involved with shoveling coal you quickly realize that it's anything but easy! [And, yes, I know you were speaking in jest. But I grew up in what was then coal and steel country, and working in either industry, even as a "lowly shoveler" was way more work than I ever wanted to do. A desk job is a vacation by comparison!]

 

[GTP]

As for me and my house, even though I'll be in the ground soon enough

Personally, I see a future not to dissimilar from the Hollywood movies we watch today with robot overlords taking over policing duties, medical duties and many, many of the mundane tasks that human workers perform.
Big Brother is already surveilling our every move.

Autonomous cars/trucks/trains are not that far away from being mainstream.
Autonomous airlines? Within 10 years I'd say.

But it will all collapse because no one will be able to afford to buy - let alone use this type of transport.

Within the next 30~50 years I see a dystopian world divided between the haves and the have nots with 75% of the planets population either starving, being exploited or dead.

Like you, I'll be gone soon so it wont concern me at all. I just worry for my grandson and the world he will be a part of.
I see corporations like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, etc practically owning the world.

1984 anyone?

 

[britechguy]

I am far more sanguine than you are.

When I think about what my grandmother, who was born in 1897 and died in 1993, lived through and saw change it boggles my mind. The shifts of the late industrial revolution and the totality of the 20th century are no more, or less, momentous and disruptive of the status quo than the changes I foresee from automation.

I am not trying to be a Pollyanna about this, as the disruptions will be huge and the transitions difficult, but I have no doubt that humanity can continue making it "through to the other side" as time and circumstances dictate. I think that far too many cannot even entertain the idea of a dystopian world, and will work to prevent it, that it will not come to pass. Also, societies where there are truly only haves and have nots, and nothing else, have always collapsed pretty quickly (relatively speaking). And now that there has existed, a worldwide, a middle class of massive proportions they're not just going to go away, quietly.

 

[GTP]

I am far more sanguine than you are.

When I think about what my grandmother, who was born in 1897 and died in 1993, lived through and saw change it boggles my mind. The shifts of the late industrial revolution and the totality of the 20th century are no more, or less, momentous and disruptive of the status quo than the changes I foresee from automation.

I am not trying to be a Pollyanna about this, as the disruptions will be huge and the transitions difficult, but I have no doubt that humanity can continue making it "through to the other side" as time and circumstances dictate. I think that far too many cannot even entertain the idea of a dystopian world, and will work to prevent it, that it will not come to pass. Also, societies where there are truly only haves and have nots, and nothing else, have always collapsed pretty quickly (relatively speaking). And now that there has existed, a worldwide, a middle class of massive proportions they're not just going to go away, quietly.

The world changed very rapidly as you stated with the Industrial Revolution and especially after WW2.
The advances were profound in everything from medicine to food production to rocketry and so much more.

I still see the problems of a "workerless society." The rampant unemployment, the strain on governments to provide services like health care to the populations (which are growing at an exponential rate) and the eventual collapse of society as we know despite opinions of a dystopian world.
One of the greatest challenges will be feeding the populace. Finding enough farmable land to grow food crops or graze animals.
Urban sprawl eats up land like never before. I've been in Adelaide for about 17 years now. When I first came here to my present location, there were sheep and cattle grazing on land all around me. Now that same land is either industrial or housing estates. Thousand of hectares of once prime farmland; gone.
I read a report a few years ago pertaining to Adelaide where they predicted Adelaide's population to go from (presently) 1.4 million to around 8 million within the next 50 years.
Other cities will be the same. New York for example has almost the population of Australia.
Tokyo has 1.5 x Australia's population. In 50 years time it will probably double.
Where will the food come from? Hungry people get angry. Angry people rebel against anything and everything.

Corporate greed will own everything and charge accordingly. If you cant pay you go without, like many of us are doing right now.

Goods and services are there for those well heeled enough to be able to enjoy them. For now.
There is always the chance that humanity will colonize other worlds too, such as Titan, which looks to be the most promising "after earth" so far that we can reach in the near future.
But this will all be started and largely controlled by machines initially and I still dont believe colonizing other worlds will help our home planet.

 

[Alexey]

But for now, that labor is still in the back of the house stocking shelves.

Take a look at this thing, humming in the back of the house stocking shelves.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Aircraft are already flown by robots... have been for years. The only thing the robot doesn't do is land the plane. It can, the humans are just required to by law. At least here in the US.

 

[Cooperdog]

Am I the only one thinking that it just proves how much companies want to get rid of employees.

With the help of big government.

 

[gadgetfixup]

The invention of the microwave and dishwasher will give us so much more free time to relax and enjoy life. The same teacher taught us the USA was switching to the metric system in a couple of years so we 5th graders better learn. In history class, we watched the impeachment of President Nixon. Pretty much what I'm hearing after reading all these comments.......

 

[britechguy]

The invention of the microwave and dishwasher will give us so much more free time to relax and enjoy life. The same teacher taught us the USA was switching to the metric system in a couple of years so we 5th graders better learn. In history class, we watched the impeachment of President Nixon. Pretty much what I'm hearing after reading all these comments.......

Well, the Law of Unintended Results is always a factor.

But I'd say that the dishwasher, at the very least, has definitely freed up many, many, many hours of my time to do something else that I'd prefer to do, in most cases. The microwave, not so much, but still some.

The failure of the USA to "go metric" across the board really has been our loss, and it was a blunder not to have done so. Industry has, and any US product sold abroad (and most here) are marked in both English and metric measures.

But there can be little doubt that the so-called "workerless society," or anything kinda, sorta approaching same, is a major disruptor to the status quo. But what that disruption turns out to be is unclear at this juncture.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy Yeah the machine learning stuff, and to be clear this is NOT AI. We are not, nor is anyone on this planet working on AI. We're still stuck in Machine Learning...

Anyway this stuff isn't a huge magic bullet. But we do have robots that can be shown something once, and repeat it... which means assembly lines of just about any kind are on the chopping block. We have technologies converging on multiple angles to eliminate data entry positions of any form. This is going to dig deep into the mortage and banking industries. Then there's the self driving vehicles that are already automating ports and other closed systems around the world, which presumably will be ready for the open road in the next 20 years.

There's plenty of proven disruption on the horizon to be very concerned. Capitalism requires full employment, and just the list of stuff above is enough to cause sustained unemployment pushing 40%. That's not just concerning, historically it's civilization ending.