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As time moves forward and we move into the next stages of automation, many of the ancillary and support roles being created out of "stage 1" automation will themselves be automated away.
Take the McD's kiosks example. Stage 1 automation will automate away most of the line workers, and some of the low level supervisors. Initially, there will be more jobs created for the engineers designing the kiosks, vendors selling/installing them, and for support personnel supporting the machines. Over time, fewer of these kiosks will need to be built as the market reaches saturation, diminishing the need for engineers, manufacturing staff, and vendors. Most of the remaining human jobs at the fast food joint will be eliminated. The kiosks will likely be more reliable/self-maintaining, or be maintained more heavily by a non-human solution, so those jobs will end up gone.
We're a long way form self-maintaining computers. Take it from a guy who would prefer to see computers be self-maintained. People really don't understand how hard automation actually is. There are a lot of moving peaces to an automated system, that I think people overlook. Even to get content on that kiosk screen takes a lot of complicated things all kind of coming together to deliver you an experience. When you go to your self checkin at Delta or American Airlines, don't believe for a second that there isn't someone fighting database failures, data consistency issues, network problems, and other errors to get you that content on the screen.
I'm a guy who works in big data, software engineering, with a HUGE focus on automation. It's not easy man, it's really not. We're not good at creating smart computers. We're a long way from that. Machine Learning (which I'm currently studying) may help some things out. But we're a long way from self-maintained kiosk. I don't doubt we won't get there one day. But we're a LONG way from it.
You don't appear to know the difference between education vs. ignorance and intelligence (smarter) vs. stupidity (less smart). They are completely different concepts. As stated by a sign hanging in one of my high school classrooms, "Stupidity is permanent; ignorance can be fixed"
Your argument is that someone from the 19th century is somehow less intelligent (less smart) because they are ignorant of skills needed to survive in the modern world, which is completely false logic. And to throw a good dose of double-standard in the mix, when I point out that you are ignorant of the skills needed to survive in the 19th century, you claim that your own logic no longer applies (you said, "weak argument"). By chance, do you work in talk radio?
And again, people in the 19th century were less educated for the simple reason that high level educations were a luxury reserved for the rich. Everyone else was too busy working to survive to spend time learning reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. They were not less intelligent. If a 19th century child were transported to now, that child would grow up just as educated and functional as my children.
Also again, I didn't say the people in the 1700's or 1900's had more intellect, I said they had similar intellects.
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Originally Posted by branh0913
Yes, and what do we say about people in society who are "just concerned with survival". We put them down and shun them? Why? Because they're just concerned with getting by. The average woman on wellfare spitting out kids is an ignorant person. But would she be ignorant in the context of the 19th century? I like to think she wouldn't. If anything a woman having a lot of children back then would have made a ton of sense.
So you see, the reason why a woman who collects a welfare check and have a bunch of kids is ignorant in today's society, because the overall standards of what you expect out of a person has risen. I once knew a girl on welfare, she was very ignorant, and spit out multiple kids. I throw her on a slave plantation with the same exact mentality, and she would fit right in. People would say back then she was "essential" and necessary.
So with that said, I don't think people from the 19th century couldn't comprehend our technology. The best and brightest would be able to. But my argument has always been the AVERAGE person in this time frame just would not be able to make such a mental leap. They would not understand how to use such powerful technology.
The average person uses an engineering MARVEL like it's an afterthough now.
I've read through my post and your response multiple times and I still can't figure out your logic. How did you get from what we were debating (intelligence and learning ability of the average 19th century adult compared with the average adult today) to ... welfare queens who you would throw into slavery? I think this could tell us a lot about your background and mentality, but I'm still trying to decipher it.
Anyway, yes, I agree that if you toss a cell phone at someone from 1865 they won't have a clue as to how to work it. However, if you bring a child born in 1865 to the current time and raise that child with a modern education, they will use a cell phone just as easily as my children. There is little to no difference in base (birth-level) intelligence between a 19th century human and a 21st century human. It's all in training and education.
That said, this whole 19th century thing is technically off topic and a distraction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by branh0913
We're a long way form self-maintaining computers. Take it from a guy who would prefer to see computers be self-maintained. People really don't understand how hard automation actually is. There are a lot of moving peaces to an automated system, that I think people overlook. Even to get content on that kiosk screen takes a lot of complicated things all kind of coming together to deliver you an experience. When you go to your self checkin at Delta or American Airlines, don't believe for a second that there isn't someone fighting database failures, data consistency issues, network problems, and other errors to get you that content on the screen.
I'm a guy who works in big data, software engineering, with a HUGE focus on automation. It's not easy man, it's really not. We're not good at creating smart computers. We're a long way from that. Machine Learning (which I'm currently studying) may help some things out. But we're a long way from self-maintained kiosk. I don't doubt we won't get there one day. But we're a LONG way from it.
Here's the reality that has been proven again and again and again since the industrial revolution: automation creates fewer jobs than it destroys. If you dispute this then you need to get out into the real world more. For every person hired for "fighting database failures, data consistency issues, network problems, and other errors to get you that content on the screen", multiple people lost jobs due to automation. Instead of four cashiers working to check people out, there's now one cashier helping four customers through self-checkout lines. So for 100 stores, that's 300 cashiers out of work. Yes, 30 people were hired for " "fighting database failures, data consistency issues, network problems, and other errors to get you that content on the screen" and for manufacturing the kiosks themselves, but that' still 270 people going on social welfare programs.
All that said, I'm not anti-automation. As I stated earlier I use it myself regularly at work. When I first started my group consisted of 6 people; now we're down to 4 and we handle more work. Automation, in general, can be a very good thing. But all of the arguments you made in the OP are flat out false to the point of being blatant lies.
Wrong. The easiest indicator is to measure total US GDP growth versus real wages / incomes and total number of people employed (full time). GDP has grown, Real wages/ income have remained stagnant, and total employment has dropped to nominal levels of 1970s. Another interesting stat would be the median household income over time.
Net result is much more actual output(s) to human labor hour in businesses - first most noticeable in manufacturing and then migrating (as all efficiency does) across many other industries.
Economically you have massive structural problems due to:
1) extended life span of humans (rapidly expanding debt obligations i.e. social security, unemployed and underemployed in many instances being transferred to SSDI, to hide real unemployment)
2) rapidness of skill set erosion (of which new workers pay an inflated cost via education industry) which makes human labor while extremely valuable less and less worth the long term corporate investment. Human skills viability life cycle is shortening.
3) continued automation of formerly un-thought of human jobs
Technology, automation and enterprise software have reached a tipping point whereby they are continually eroding a larger number of jobs than they create. Most new job creation has been in the low service sectors and with fewer new jobs in higher paying jobs for those remaining (various tech influenced arenas).
Worker skill sets erode faster than ever before as the tech usurps the ability of human learning in many low end repetitive task oriented old line (mostly manufacturing non human interfacing type business tasks). This means companies have less incentive to ramp up human labor and more incentive to adopt technology with more rapid 'task ability' upgrade i.e. efficiency.
I closing, there have always been people who stood in the way of technological progress due to fear. But the only reason why we're a rich world is due to technology. So why do we care if we get rid of a dozen positions yet create thousands more?
The reason we are rich is due to technology, but it isn't because it has created more jobs. Rather it's because consumers have shared equally in those productivity gains. And when consumers have more income, they spend it, creating new demand.
In the US at least, the income has been extremely lopsided in the last 40 years, with most of the gains going to a handful of people, and real median income has been flat. This isn't sustainable without a major societal shift.
I get sickened every time I bother to listen to conservative media. It baffles me to see a "Rush is Right" or "Trump for President" sign in the front yard of a lower-middle-class worker who will likely lose their next job because the rich company owner shipped it overseas. I'm flabbergasted by middle-class workers parroting the ultra-rich talk-show hosts calls to lower tax rates for the ultra rich.
Interesting how good the propaganda works, eh?
If you don't like to feel sick get rid of the TV. I did 30 years ago and have never missed it.
People overcomplicate the whole situation. The most likely long term solution to unemployment caused by automation is much simpler. It might take some political demagogues to push us in that direction, but the final solution would simply be to get rid of the unemployed. And we might at that point have billions of robots to accomplish that task.
Actually it means quite a lot. I can do things on the computer that my parents and grandparents couldn't even imagine. I qualify for jobs that people the previous generation diidn't even know existed. And while I can say there aren't a ton of software engineers out there, the number has been growing. There were software engineers in the 70s when my parents were young adults. But the number was small. In my generation the number has grown. I expect it to grow even more with my children, and I expect software development skills to be common knowledge by then.
They are smarter these days. Back in the 1800s and the early 20th century the concept of "educated" was someone who knew how to read and understand basic arithmetic. All of this higher learning in advance mathematics was MOSTLY for elite and rich. Even something that we think of as basic like geometry and algebra would have only been for people who had an elite education.
What is funny is that we don't realize that to someone in the 1800s that the idea of a cash register would serve as a complete paradigm shift. The idea of sophisticated transctions would also be, and the idea of the type of currency we trade would go over most people's heads. So I don't think a cash register would be very intuitive to the average 1865 mind.
No, I probably couldn't do anything that they did in 1865. That doesn't make me dumber than them. I wouldn't be able to do it, because in modern life there is no need to. The thing you don't say about 1865 is that they lacked all of these technological innovations, and did almost everything by hand. And in such life expetency was 39 years old. That means that me, at 36 would be 3 years from a natural death. Regressing is VERY hard for anyone. Similarly I don't think someone in an 1865 world could go back 1,000 years in Africa and learn to hunt and craft spears for their survival. This is a pretty weak argument.
3 days training? Not sure, because to an 1865 mind a cell phone is an absolute paradigm shift. We're talking about people who didn't live in a world of cell phones, and who couldn't even conceive a voice coming out of a device. Or even see a projection of software onto a screen for that matter. And controlling something via touch? Actually the average 1865 mind would be more like "what's the point".
Sure there will be people who are smart enough to figure out some of the applicability of a cellphone. But guess what. Those people would become the brightest minds in the world. The idea of unlocking a phone, and getting onto software would be so far beyond a 1865 mind, that anyone would even understand this concept would be considered geniuses.
Most people in general would die if they were transported to a time when they had less resources. People died earlier and more frequently 200 years ago. This doesn't give the 1700 mind more intellect.
The market would meet these demands. And who is to say you really NEED training? Let me explain. Back in 1992, the AVERAGE person had no clue how to use a computer. It wasn't uncommon for people not to even know how to turn the damn thing on. What ended up happening? Well kids learned computers in schools. Then taught their parents how to use them. How many times do you hear of people 20-30 years old signing their parents up to facebook, or setting up the computer for their parents? All the time.
Now why do I mention this? well because computer themselves have become domesticated. The reason why more people can use a computer, and learn computer concepts is because more people HAVE computers. And more people can become proficient and even learn computer jobs. Robotics will become the same way. Just like people learn to program there VCR or learned to turn on their computer to watch their favorite cat videos and world star hip hop vids, we will have people who can program complicated robots like it's a second thought. And those people will be able to have careers working with robots and technology.
Everyone will become technical. And it doesn't require a whole lot of intelligence to do.
Of course it does. Cashiers are operating a multi billion dollar electric warehouse. With sophisticated transactions, and complicated programming. Are THEY programming it themselves? No. But many issues happen with these systems that are solved by cashiers on sight. Such as issue with the till not having enough cash, keeping track of their transactions, and voiding transactions. Yes cashier solve issues. They are solviing issues with transactions is a very sophsticated system, and a cashier error can lead to a lot of money lost for the company. If every cashier screwed up every transaction at every McDonalds, you, there would be no McDonalds. It's not a non-thinking and brainless job.
The funny thing is that mobile technology is now replacing traditional POS systems. The average person knows how to launch software, launch transaction software, view their transactions, authenticate into several high secure systems, etc. And this software has issues, which is resolved by people who work on cellphones. Even something like ending a task is still a pretty technical task. If I asked someone from 1982 to log into a high secure transaction system from a mobile device. You would go and get your most talented software engineers to figure it out. You wouldn't get your 18 year old high school dropout to do it. But now days even a high school dropout can do that.
So this should tell you that the average technical competency is high. And it will only get higher.
I have to assume that thus entire post is some type of elaborate inside joke. Your ideas about the state of education and technology throughout the 1800's are completely wrong. You are painting everyone from that era as simple country bumpkins, like Central European peasants a thousand years ago. The industrial revolution was going strong since the late 1700's, educated people were well versed in Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as literature, the sciences, and all of the humanities.
You speak about the people of 150 years ago as if they were the Central Americans of the 1500's, too wrapped up in superstition to understand that the Spanish soldiers were not part of their horses. Back then, natural selection weeded out the dull witted and slow, unlike today where there is no lower limit on intelligence or abilities. People IN GENERAL were more clever 150 or 200 years ago than they are today, because if they weren't, they didn't eat.
Wake up and smell the coffee. We aren't living in a Star Trek 'everyone is awesome' utopia.
Hey everyone. This is my first post so I hope this is in the right section. Anyway, I've been hearing a lot about automation in the news and how a lot of food service jobs are being eliminated. And that is only the beginning. So with that being said, what do you guys and girls think will be next? What careers or jobs should a person look into or start looking into to prepare? What career/field/jobs are automation proof? Basic income is also a topic that is controversial with a significant amount of people who support it and who oppose it. If a basic income system isn't implemented, what should a person's Plan B be?
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What careers or jobs are automation proof?
