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It explains that robots won't lead to unemployment but rather reemployment for human beings. The ones replaced by robots will go into other fields and those fields will see an increase in productivity. So over all it will increase productivity across the board.
That is describing what has happened since the industrial revolution began. There is a fundamental difference between that and our future. There won't be other fields. The advantages that humans have will become insignificant, and their skills will not support viable employment.
There is a severe shortage of people who can take care of the robotics and do what they cannot do including advanced troubleshooting and decision making jobs.
With unemployment generally high, I wonder why that would be the case. Low pay? Too much intelligence required? Poor working conditions? Poor job stability? Or something else?
That is describing what has happened since the industrial revolution began. There is a fundamental difference between that and our future. There won't be other fields. The advantages that humans have will become insignificant, and their skills will not support viable employment.
New fields are being created today that didn't even exist ten years ago thanks to the advancement of technology. The print and media jobs aren't disappearing. They're turning into different job descriptions as people adapt to the changes and learn new skills for the online formats.
The article also did describe two other options than the recreation of jobs. One very bad option and one very good option. Which do you subscribe to?
With unemployment generally high, I wonder why that would be the case. Low pay? Too much intelligence required? Poor working conditions? Poor job stability? Or something else?
We can debate the unemployment issue. Unemployment rates are low and have been extremely low for a long time especially for jobs requiring college.
Aside from that comment you do raise some serious issues. I think the big issue is the time, effort, and intelligence required to gain the necessary skills. Compared with the past and with life in other countries our life in the US (or Canada and western Europe) is very easy. Many people are not that interested in expending effort to learn skills and work hard. We want jobs that are fun, entertaining, low pressure and involve social interactions. Being precise, solving problems, constantly encountering new types of problems and being individually responsible can become too stressful for many. In spite of pay, job stability and working conditions it is still difficult to find skilled and competent computer programmers. Maintaining robotics and automated equipment requires similar skills.
Years ago lots of workers had "good" union jobs that paid well and offered great benefits. Unfortunately many of those jobs were menial and did not require much effort. Many of those jobs are the very jobs that vanished, first due to globalization and now due to automation.
The article also did describe two other options than the recreation of jobs. One very bad option and one very good option. Which do you subscribe to?
I've probably got over 100 posts in this thread describing the trajectory we are on and why. Including the original one.
The trends are negative.
We will not have a rosy future unless a) we organize and fight for it, before it's too late. Or b) our overlords are actually so benevolent that they will grant us prosperity and freedom at their own expense.
One comment about the article, their "rosy" scenario isn't a possibility in any case. We do not have unlimited land, energy, and natural resources for everyone to have everything they want. Very few will need to work, but these constraints will limit how much you can have. This is mainly why oligarchs will have every reason to reduce the population of useless humans. They can use the resources themselves.
I think the big issue is the time, effort, and intelligence required to gain the necessary skills.
There is currently no lack of decent jobs for talented people who have acquired the necessary training. The problem is the lack of decent jobs for people who *aren't* talented, and won't be no matter how long they go to school.
As of now I don't believe much of this is caused by tech, but rather offshoring, illegal immigration, and the death of unions. This is the same demographic that will soon suffer the most from tech unemployment, and then it will move up the food chain to make nearly everyone's labor obsolete.
Those Chinese robots look real similar to robots I saw 30 years ago. They can become useful tools for improving manufacturing efficiency and reliability but are a long way from intelligent devices with broad capability, versatility and the ability to handle more than repetitive tasks. We have handled the manufacturing efficiency issue to going mega scale and using cheap 3rd world labor. As the 3rd world labor becomes increasingly more costly that will stimulate further utilization of robotics. The Western world is not going to see massive labor reductions because those jobs are already gone.
China is already quite advanced in automation and robotics. Has that eliminated jobs? Not yet and not for the foreseeable future even for simple manufacturing processes. China is faced with increasing demand, limited labor and hence rising costs of labor.
You can't tell anything about a robot by looking at them. The thing that distinguishes these robots is that they are multi-purpose and can work in many different factories. It makes no difference what they look like, the difference is how smart they are.
You apparently missed the part of the video about cutting the work force in half and the interview with the displaced worker.
That is describing what has happened since the industrial revolution began. There is a fundamental difference between that and our future. There won't be other fields. The advantages that humans have will become insignificant, and their skills will not support viable employment.
Production is no longer a social problem in the developed world. There is no shortage of anything. In the future, people will not have to work. They can just collect a basic income and do what they want. It drives social conservatives nuts, but our only realistic choice for the future is to pay a large part of the population for doing nothing.
With unemployment generally high, I wonder why that would be the case. Low pay? Too much intelligence required? Poor working conditions? Poor job stability? Or something else?
In what country is unemployment generally high? Unemployment in the USA is pretty low.
It drives social conservatives nuts, but our only realistic choice for the future is to pay a large part of the population for doing nothing.
That's pretty much a given, but at what level? The most "realistic" option is that we will support the useless masses (which will eventually be nearly everyone) in poverty, encourage them not to breed, and allow depopulation to happen naturally.
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