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I read an expert recently who said that even if companies who had moved factory production out of the country were convinced to bring it back, that production would almost certainly be more automated than it was when it moved out of the country. Instead of a couple of dozen people working on an assembly line, there would be 2 people, supervising the work of a dozen robots.
What’s better, 2 high paying robot management jobs, or 0 jobs?
I am very concerned about increase automation, especially that which is brought-upon by increased-use of AI 'replacing' it's human-counterparts...
...but what bothers me the most, is the growing movement towards 'digital-currency'.
I'm not going to go all 'anti Mark-of-the Beast' rant here...because some believe and some don't...
...but I AM going to rant about the risk to those who are in WAY over thier heads (in debt) who wish for a move towards a 'cash-less' society.
You have NO idea where this will take this human 'race' if we go ALL-DIGITAL currency.
Once you surrender yourself to the system, they HAVE you...BALLS to Bone.
GONE is your ability to 'decide' where, when and how to pay your bills...it'll just be TAKEN right out of your account...with or without your permission...and they will NOT care if they 'empty' your account...and you won't find out until your next visit to the pharmacy, or grocery-store, pass your RFID-chip implanted hand over the scanner...and 'BEEP' !
"I'm sorry sir...it appears as if your account does not have the funds to purchase your items...could you please step over here, and a store-affiliate will visit with you shortly....NEXT !"
See where I'm going with this ? Automation is bad enough (for all the reasons listed in the thread) but along with automation comes this 'mad rush' towards...something more horrible facing us as a species...than anything I can imagine...
Just remember, the smartphone that revolutionized our global social life did not exist ten years ago. The technology that changes our lives in 15 years hasn't even been invented yet.
This post says it all.
Anyone care to guess what the next 'big thing' will be? I think its safe to say the last was definitely cell phones, it has changed almost everyones lives and they have only been around for a little over 15 yrs...Just imagine what the next big thing is!!
Over the past several weeks, there have been multiple threads about illegal immigrants taking jobs from Americans. But I find it odd how no one is talking about the increasing trend of automation and the increasing online marketplace is affecting the labor market.
There hasn't been much discussion of brick and mortar retail chains closing up shop, undergoing massive layoffs and bankruptcy.
We are talking about thousands of stores closing and thousands of people now out of work.
Currently congress is debating how to handle the deployment of autonomous vehicles. This could be a threat to thousands of delivery drivers. Certainly in the next decade they may be put out of work as well.
But I ask again why aren't people concerned about this?
Not sure how old you are, but I've been living the transition to automation for several years. Meaning, it's not a new thing at all. The company I worked for installed a lot of robots that did the job a person was doing. Fortunately, the company did not lay the displaced workers off but moved them to other areas.
The return on investment(ROI) of automation is nothing short of amazing. In one instance a robot was installed that did the work of three workers(one ea. shift). The payback on this one robot was less than 18 months. Consider that three salaries,pensions, and benefits were eliminated(on paper),not to mention that the robot is never late, sick, or takes a break, and you've got a situation you can't turn down.
Automation will never go away because it's the most cost efficient way of doing business. I wouldn't be surprised that within the next ten years we aren't seeing package and mail deliveries from the US Post Office as they look to technology to save themselves from bankruptcy.
Not necessarily. People will have opportunities to get training for something in demand. All those stable boys and horse breeders found something else to do when the auomobiles took over.
^^ this. A large majority of the population used to be in farming. One of the earlier US presidents once said "Every American is a farmer". Still true today, but you'd need to replace "farmer" with "smartphone user". Now, only about 5% of the nation is in farming, but still able to provide the same output
People who washed clothes got replaced with washing machines
Telephone switchboard operators got replaced with automatic switchboards.
The list goes on and on really. Many teens and adults would've been working those jobs had things not changed, so you could argue automation freed them up for FF, retail, etc. Where will THEY go in decades to come? I can honestly say I don't know.
I already crushed that idea a few pages back. We’d most likely be living in a Madmax like future before we’d be outlawed from driving.
I disagree, trucking is a great example, this is the first industry that will be totally dissolved thanks to automation/ SD trucks, and its happening right now, in another 5-10 yrs, there will be no such job as truck driver.
When this switch happens, do you actually think they will still allow a person to buy a manual drive truck and continue being a truck driver? Of course not, to make the whole system effective, it will have to be mandatory... NO manual truck drivers anymore.
However it wont be pitched that way, all the benefits will be touted, we can now get all the drivers off the road and home with their families, no more weeks on the road away from loved ones, no more risk of causing accidents from lack of sleep, They will sell it as being great for the drivers, and people in general, prices will go down now that we dont have to pay drivers anymore, they can have trucks operating 24/7, no rest periods required, etc etc.
I worked for a fortune 500 company. The division I worked in had 2500 assembly line workers. They built a modern with almost full automation. When completed the company laid off most of the production workers. However the company soon learned that their automation did not work as plan and had to rehire the employees they laid off and hire more people. The plant perked along with 3000 employees and slowly the company began to get the automation working. After ten years they reduced the employee number from 3000 to 300 and pretty much had a lights out facility.
You might think this corporation would be satisfied, but no they wanted more. The company then closed this plant in the US and moved the operation overseas.
With more automation comes less jobs. True automation will create high tech jobs, but it will also produce a massive number of unemployed people.
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