Six Jobs That Automation Will Eliminate

[FakezZ]

On 3/8/2017 at 6:45 PM, SamStrecker said:

Well if you teach a robot how to program, which we have

Citation needed?

[Teddy07]

14 hours ago, tlink said:

.... not to mention that because people have no job they might as well become electrician and plumber or electrician and programmer.

 

 

Like programming is so easy... No worries it will not be flooded by the masses

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, Sauron said:

Or, you know, we could educate people. But if you dare mention state sponsored higher education to the same people who want robot taxation you'll get lynched.

While yes, tax subsidized post secondary education is generally good for a country's economy, that won't really solve the "post-automation" problem, for a few reasons.

 

1. Not everyone is capable of achieving success in post secondary education. Some people simply aren't smart enough, or lack the willpower to put in the extra work necessary to achieve something that a regular person might achieve with ease.

2. There will simply not be enough jobs, highly educated/skilled, or otherwise.

 

Once automation takes over many of the "grunt work" that most people are employed doing, yes, there's gonna be need for people to program them, design them, and maintain them. But not nearly as many people as were put out of work by said automation to begin with.

 

Sure, no one can see the future, so there might be some "unknowable" economic paradigm shift that creates new jobs for these people, but I cannot fathom what those jobs might be, and how they would be safe from simply building a robot to do it instead.

[Phate.exe]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

While yes, tax subsidized post secondary education is generally good for a country's economy, that won't really solve the "post-automation" problem, for a few reasons.

 

1. Not everyone is capable of achieving success in post secondary education. Some people simply aren't smart enough, or lack the willpower to put in the extra work necessary to achieve something that a regular person might achieve with ease.

2. There will simply not be enough jobs, highly educated/skilled, or otherwise.

 

Once automation takes over many of the "grunt work" that most people are employed doing, yes, there's gonna be need for people to program them, design them, and maintain them. But not nearly as many people as were put out of work by said automation to begin with.

 

Sure, no one can see the future, so there might be some "unknowable" economic paradigm shift that creates new jobs for these people, but I cannot fathom what those jobs might be, and how they would be safe from simply building a robot to do it instead.

Yay for Post-Scarcity!

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Phate.exe said:

Yay for Post-Scarcity!

Post-scarcity is great... if there is a system in place to ensure those unlimited resources are distributed to anyone who needs them.

 

That's socialism, or social democracy. Both of which are things that America is afraid of.

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

While yes, tax subsidized post secondary education is generally good for a country's economy, that won't really solve the "post-automation" problem, for a few reasons.

 

1. Not everyone is capable of achieving success in post secondary education. Some people simply aren't smart enough, or lack the willpower to put in the extra work necessary to achieve something that a regular person might achieve with ease.

2. There will simply not be enough jobs, highly educated/skilled, or otherwise.

 

Once automation takes over many of the "grunt work" that most people are employed doing, yes, there's gonna be need for people to program them, design them, and maintain them. But not nearly as many people as were put out of work by said automation to begin with.

 

Sure, no one can see the future, so there might be some "unknowable" economic paradigm shift that creates new jobs for these people, but I cannot fathom what those jobs might be, and how they would be safe from simply building a robot to do it instead.

There used to be a time where people would manually farm their small piece of land and make a living out of it. Moving to machines which allowed to farm 100 times as much land did not collapse the economy - new jobs were created as the old ones were phased out.

 

While it's true that not everyone is capable of getting, say, and engineering degree, it doesn't mean we can't teach them a higher level job. High school often does not really prepare a person for anything more than menial jobs and potentially university, but if there were shorter (and/or easier) courses designed to teach non-trivial but achievable jobs more people would be able to move up. Remember that while it would probably be possible to replace a lot of higher positions with a robot too it may not be cost effective - repetitive physical labor is one thing, tasks that require you to move around and (for example) deliver things are already a lot more complicated to substitute (amazon drones are definitely not ready yet and not a lot of companies are in amazon's position).

 

Honestly I doubt the shift will happen overnight, perhaps as we go on new types of jobs will pop up as well.

[Moress]

On 3/8/2017 at 1:57 PM, That Norwegian Guy said:

Only way to avoid societal collapse/ anarchy

You miss the part where the 1% use the robots to kill the rest of us. Cant have a workers uprising if you coded all the workers

[tlink]

6 hours ago, Prysin said:

trust me, as someone actually working in the field. We take in a lot of students who work for us for free. Free is not great. Free is a fucking hassle. Because free, low skill work, 90% of what they do must be redone or double checked by a skilled worker. OR isnt done properly and costs the company money.

 

The only reason why companies take in apprentices atm, is because our government pays us to do it, and refuse to give gov contracts to companies without a apprentice...

 

If this wasnt the case, they wouldnt get a job unless they were friends or family of someone who worked in the company, this goes for most companies except the biggest ones (300+ employees). 

 

Low skill or apprentices is a fucking hassle for a company in a profession with as many regulations as mine has.

my argument is not that this is a new thing. my argument is that there will be a huge influx in those. you keep misinterpreting my arguments. even if 99% off those is shit, a increase in the pool size will also increase the size of the 1% that isn't shit, flooding that job market with quality workers.

[dalekphalm]

36 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There used to be a time where people would manually farm their small piece of land and make a living out of it. Moving to machines which allowed to farm 100 times as much land did not collapse the economy - new jobs were created as the old ones were phased out.

 

While it's true that not everyone is capable of getting, say, and engineering degree, it doesn't mean we can't teach them a higher level job. High school often does not really prepare a person for anything more than menial jobs and potentially university, but if there were shorter (and/or easier) courses designed to teach non-trivial but achievable jobs more people would be able to move up. Remember that while it would probably be possible to replace a lot of higher positions with a robot too it may not be cost effective - repetitive physical labor is one thing, tasks that require you to move around and (for example) deliver things are already a lot more complicated to substitute (amazon drones are definitely not ready yet and not a lot of companies are in amazon's position).

 

Honestly I doubt the shift will happen overnight, perhaps as we go on new types of jobs will pop up as well.

Obviously jobs are still safe for at least another 20+ years. But in 40 years, I would be surprised if Robotics and Automation didn't advance enough to be capable (at an affordable price) of a majority of regular jobs.

 

So I agree that some jobs can still be created, and there will certainly be new jobs we haven't even dreamed of, it's a bit different from the Industrial revolution.

 

Even now, you can pretty much design a robot (A cost-prohibitive design, to be sure, for non-repetitive tasks) to do pretty much any manual/physical action. How will that look in 30 or 40 years?

 

I doubt this is the most accurate source in the world, but take for example, some of the most common jobs in America:

http://www.ranker.com/list/most-common-jobs-in-america/american-jobs

1. Retail Salesperson - a robot/automation can already do this job, in a most basic sense (online stores, for example) - but most of the tasks involved could be automated. I COULD see the employment need for a human still in the sense of a person to provide aesthetic suggestions, recommendations, and their personal opinion (The "does this look good on me?" part of the job). But vastly fewer people would be needed to fulfill that kind of role. Hell, you could staff a big clothing store with a half dozen people or less, if their only job was to give their opinion or suggestions on clothing combos, fashion, etc.

 

2. Cashiers - Just a matter of time, before this job is entirely automated. Self-checkouts are already a thing in many big department stores - I use one frequently whenever I go to Zehrs (Big Canadian grocery chain) - nothing a cashier does requires a human - pretty much their entire job could be automated.

 

3. Office clerk - now this is a big vague, as office clerk can mean many things, but if we assume data entry, filling out forms, etc, most of that could be automated eventually.

 

4. Combined food prep/servers - All of this could be automated as well. McDonalds has already rolled out big touch screen Kiosks across stores that allow you to fully pick your order and customize it (even choosing what condiments, etc). Cooking the food will take a bit longer to happen, but most restaurants use "standardized cooking procedures" anyway - "You cook this hamburger for 4 minutes, flipping twice after 30 seconds", etc.

 

5. Registered nurses - part of this job could be automated, but not necessarily all of it - part of a nurse's job is quite simply human empathy (holding a scared patients hand, telling them it'll be okay, soothing someone who's in pain, etc) - however, frankly, even some of that could be "synthesized" using an AI/VI and/or a life-like humanoid robot. Deep down, would it matter what's under the skin of a kind looking "nurse" is holding your hand, and telling you it'll be alright, if the hand feels real?

 

Now, not all of these could be replaced today, and certainly not quickly. But sooner or later, most of these jobs can be automated, and for cheaper than a person (Given that an automation device/robot has an expected lifetime and maintenance costs, vs the salary of a person over that entire time, combined with how much more efficient the robot would be).

 

I just think that we cannot count on there being magical new jobs to deal with this crisis - and it is a crisis, sooner or later it's happening. If these new jobs do appear? Great! If not, we need to think about what to do when there are 50 or 100 million unemployed "working age" Americans, instead of the current 7 or 8 million.

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

If not, we need to think about what to do when there are 50 or 100 million unemployed "working age" Americans, instead of the current 7 or 8 million.

Consider this though - if this all turns into a robotic circlejerk where robots do most of the work in every large business... it will get to a point where the money that is spared will be lost by no longer having any customers for your product. What happens if we get to the point where you can susbstitute the ceo of a company and essentially have a bunch of robots run the whole thing? What's the point of any of that if humans can no longer afford your stuff?

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Consider this though - if this all turns into a robotic circlejerk where robots do most of the work in every large business... it will get to a point where the money that is spared will be lost by no longer having any customers for your product. What happens if we get to the point where you can susbstitute the ceo of a company and essentially have a bunch of robots run the whole thing? What's the point of any of that if humans can no longer afford your stuff?

Good point - but who's going to hold them back from doing that? Who's going to force the CEO of Ford to consider that, when he doesn't give a shit about 20 years down the line, when he can save $5 Million USD a day by firing 90% of his workforce and replacing them with robots?

 

Time and time again, we've seen some (not all) corporations ignore those concerns, and think only of their pocket books in the short or medium terms. They don't consider the consequences, or simply don't care, unless forced to.

 

Where do we draw the line? There are already factories in the world replacing humans with robots - this is already happening. At what point do you say "Well okay, NOW robots can no longer replace humans", or "only x amount of robots can replace humans", etc? And what do you say to the people who have already been replaced - assuming that there won't be some magical new job they can go and work.

 

Obviously a fully automated society can only work - in my opinion - if people don't need to work to still be consumers. Or, we transition out of a capitalist/consumer society.

Frankly, I find it easier to believe that a global welfare state with basic universal incomes is more likely than transitioning totally out of capitalism. In such a society, those who can get jobs, will - due to the motivation of more money - but competition will be extremely tough. And those who cannot get those jobs will still have some basic income so they can continue to buy products and "consume".

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Frankly, I find it easier to believe that a global welfare state with basic universal incomes is more likely than transitioning totally out of capitalism. In such a society, those who can get jobs, will - due to the motivation of more money - but competition will be extremely tough. And those who cannot get those jobs will still have some basic income so they can continue to buy products and "consume".

Germany has something like that already.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Germany has something like that already.

Indeed, some countries already have it.

 

Ontario is going to be starting a Basic Income pilot project I think this year or next year - and it'll run for a couple years and they'll evaluate it.

 

It's not proven yet whether this is the correct approach now, but when Automation starts to take over, I think it'll be crucial.

 

Here's the problem: Try getting America to pass that into law.

 

On an individual state level, basic income may well become a thing in some socialist leaning states (Eg: California), but basic incomes are generally the exact opposite of your traditional fiscal conservative's political views. To them, that means "welfare state" and "free money to lazy idiots". Obviously I'm generalizing here somewhat, and many conservatives don't fit into that stereotype, but never the less, my point is clear.

 

Personally, I hope that as an IT professional, my job remains mostly secure while I work, and by the time automation starts to really take over, I'll be retired and living comfortably. I just hope that the governments of the world actually start to take this seriously, and think about the consequences of global automation.

 

I don't believe we should arbitrarily hold back technological progress, mind you - I think that's wrong to do. We need to ensure people make a living and have disposable income, but at the same time, if we can automate most jobs, why should we hold that back and force people to work, when a basic income would potentially resolve the issue more thoroughly. Corporations could be taxed based on the level of automation (and of course, based on profits, since more automation generally leads into larger profit margins) - and that money can be funnelled back into the basic income, which allows non-working people to still buy an iPhone when robots are building them start to finish.

[Mooshi]

It doesn't matter how advanced tech becomes, there is a trust factor yhat you will never overcome on a grand scale.

 

Ask yourself, would you fly a plane without a pilot even if the pilot would have been more of a risk to your safety? Probably not.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Post-scarcity is great... if there is a system in place to ensure those unlimited resources are distributed to anyone who needs them.

 

That's socialism, or social democracy. Both of which are things that America is afraid of.

 

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.

Karl Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

 

18 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Consider this though - if this all turns into a robotic circlejerk where robots do most of the work in every large business... it will get to a point where the money that is spared will be lost by no longer having any customers for your product. What happens if we get to the point where you can susbstitute the ceo of a company and essentially have a bunch of robots run the whole thing? What's the point of any of that if humans can no longer afford your stuff?

Yes and no. You are projecting current production into a fully automated economy, assuming the same goods are produced by machines, eventually leading to "overproduction crises" (I'm on a Marxist streak it seems ) due to insufficient demand. However, you have to consider that, as workers are replaced by robots, income is redistributed from workers to "capitalists" (meaning, the owners of the robots). If no redistribution takes place between those who can invest in robots today and former workers, demand will also shift from mass production goods to luxury consumption from the few (which in itself could hinder automation). There's no need to produce goods for the masses which they cannot buy; you can instead produce goods for the super rich... unless it happens too fast or is too hard to automate (in which case you'll have said insufficient demand crisis and a huge recession). However, you can maintain mass consumption during automation through redistribution of income (which is kind of a welfare state, but a strange one, since the majority ends up being on welfare forever) or by redistributing wealth, in which case workers become robot owners to some extent, also solving the issue (provided of course you can overcome the resistance of the biggest wealth-holders...). Or you take the intermediate, dangerous route: state ownership.

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Germany has something like that already.

Any welfare state does  Although always conditional on not finding a job, etc. Finland is starting to experiment with universal rents, though.

[Riddler356]

My job is virtually gone already, ai will kill it. I am a mailroom associate at a printing company (we handle newspapers and ads, my job is to ensure that the right ads are in the right papers, and that the newspapers aren't shite)

 

[kelvinhall05]

But why am I not surprised?

 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

14 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

It doesn't matter how advanced tech becomes, there is a trust factor yhat you will never overcome on a grand scale.

 

Ask yourself, would you fly a plane without a pilot even if the pilot would have been more of a risk to your safety? Probably not.

Eventually, yes that will be overcome. Maybe some will resist, but if you grew up your entire life with AI driven SmartCars existing, with a safety record unmatched by human drivers, you probably wouldn't even have a trust issue.

 

Realistically, it will take for the current older generations to die out naturally, or it will take society forcing it upon those who resist.

 

And to answer your question: Yes, I would fly in a plane without a pilot, assuming that statistically speaking, it was as much safer as we think it will be).

[Tellos]

@dalekphalm

 

Issue with the cashier theory, some stores are removing their automated check out. Citing costs and high theft rates. Also many find they have to hire people to handle the machines foul ups. Also back in college during e-commerce security classes it reminds me of the issues of perfect security not being possible thus somebody could then bring entire companies to their knees via cyber attacks. next we have had automated phone customer service for years and people HATE it and almost always try to jsut get to a person. i agree automation is gonna keep growing it's fairly easy to see.

 

I just do not see it being so easy as just stuff a machine in there and all is finished.

[straight_stewie]

On 3/8/2017 at 10:42 AM, Kloaked said:

One job in particular that's up to the chopping block - everyone should have seen this coming with autonomous vehicles - are drivers.

This is all hype. Besides the technology that is only partially there (most of the methods that are gaining popularity require ALL roadgoing vehicles to be fitted with special equipment), the problem of law exists.

If a driverless car has an accident, who's fault is it?

Beyond these issues, I personally prefer driving myself around, and will continue to do so until I am no longer physically or mentally capable of doing so (there are many that share this opinion).

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, Tellos said:

@dalekphalm

 

Issue with the cashier theory, some stores are removing their automated check out. Citing costs and high theft rates. Also many find they have to hire people to handle the machines foul ups. Also back in college during e-commerce security classes it reminds me of the issues of perfect security not being possible thus somebody could then bring entire companies to their knees via cyber attacks. next we have had automated phone customer service for years and people HATE it and almost always try to jsut get to a person. i agree automation is gonna keep growing it's fairly easy to see.

 

I just do not see it being so easy as just stuff a machine in there and all is finished.

All true, but the technology is still in it's infancy.

 

For example, when AI/VI become more mature, you could be talking to a "person" whom you can converse with, and you may not even know they're not a human. Some bots are already quite good at this.

 

As for the cashier issue, the main problem around theft, etc, is that the store itself is still designed around having people inside them. That can change.

Eg: You go into "Wal-Mart", and literally everything they sell is available via a kiosk. You select the items you want to purchase, you pay, and it then "spits out" the items from a secure dispensing machine. All the items could be in a warehouse behind the wall, tagged and coded, and when you purchase "PS4", a robotic arm goes up to Aisle 7, shelf 3, slot 47, grabs a PS4, and drops it onto a conveyor belt that then takes it straight out to the dispenser.

 

You could also have a "show me a demo" button that when pressed, will have a dummy unit displayed so you can pick it up and see what it looks like (Or perhaps the real thing - this could go either way) - and just have the demo unit secured via an alarmed security cable.

 

That way, the customer never has any real valuables in their possession until after they've paid. You could have a manager on-staff in case issues arise, and automate some of the security so if someone tampers with anything or tries to break into the warehouse, the cops are called and the alarms go off.

 

My point is not that "everything will remain the same, except now you're a robot" - that might be true in some cases, but in other cases, entire retail models will change.

[steezemageeze]

[Tellos]

@dalekphalm

 

Main issue with machine security, if ANYTHING happens to the perp upon apprehension it's a lawsuit. This is why even trained security got strict limits because stores get sued for it. The moment this occurs all the machines will be gone in a week after one store closes due to a mishap. I;ve worked in retail enough to knwo the corporate rulers of that industry are hyper reactionary in illogical ways.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

13 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

Beyond these issues, I personally prefer driving myself around, and will continue to do so until I am no longer physically or mentally capable of doing so (there are many that share this opinion).

Driving yourself isn't a job, though; driving others is. Everyone who enjoys driving can still do it for pleasure, bu it doesn't mean they will be hired to drive a bus.

[dalekphalm]

23 minutes ago, Tellos said:

@dalekphalm

 

Main issue with machine security, if ANYTHING happens to the perp upon apprehension it's a lawsuit. This is why even trained security got strict limits because stores get sued for it. The moment this occurs all the machines will be gone in a week after one store closes due to a mishap. I;ve worked in retail enough to knwo the corporate rulers of that industry are hyper reactionary in illogical ways.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with "machine security". But in the scenarios I described above, all of the product would be locked behind a door/wall/dispensing machine. There would be no "Security Robot" to man-handle the "perp", there would simply be physical barriers, tied with an automated alarm that would sound an audible alarm + alert police.

 

Sure it won't be 100% foolproof, but nothing is, and there would be very little risk of lawsuit from injuring a criminal.

 

10 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Driving yourself isn't a job, though; driving others is. Everyone who enjoys driving can still do it for pleasure, bu it doesn't mean they will be hired to drive a bus.

In addition to this, even in the event that human operated vehicles are banned from public roads, that would create new demand for private race tracks and potentially even totally private "roads" where people are allowed to drive their human operated cars for "fun" - these tracks and roads would be isolated from the public road system.

 

But I think banning human drivers is still many many years away - multiple decades at the very least.