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Saw this NYT opinion piece and wonder how this scenario may play out for future generations, for example, for kids who are in only in elementary school, would they have an even worse / bleak job market, or will disruption be more likely, starting with the outrageous higher education cost:
For those of you who have not read "Rise of the Robots" by Martin Ford, he's saying entire sectors of jobs including white collar knowledge jobs may be systematically displaced by automation. This means even well educated workers will see parts of their jobs removed. At first I thought this may increase people's selection of 'creative careers' like literature, music, and art - but apparently robots do a nice job being creative too.
At first I thought this may increase people's selection of 'creative careers' like literature, music, and art - but apparently robots do a nice job being creative too.
It wouldn't matter if robots were poor at those things. Only a tiny fraction of humanity would have the talent to make a viable living at it. Like now.
We could have a bunch of "slave" labor monitored by automation , don't do your job fast enough? The boss will see it on the efficiency reports.
Talk too much on social media? that gets logged too lol
More automation just means people have to "think" less to perform a job since they end up just pushing buttons at the correct time/sequence... more robots just "automates" their human users
other than that, the future is going to be fine... in 5-10 years the millennials will all be forgotten in the working world. The ones that are going to be successful will have "made it" and the ones that didn't will get replaced by the people in high school/college today. This happens in every generation too. Usually there isn't such a large age gap, but there might be a 10 year gap in ages but nothing we haven't seen before in the work force
The question is, how will society organize itself if a much smaller percentage of people can find employment in a workforce dominated by robots?
It would mean a large percentage of people will still need to have food and shelter without having jobs, not to mention the other amenities most are accustomed to. Given we're now importing 10's of millions of people from the 3rd world, the absolute number will be much higher than if we hadn't pursued this disastrous course.
What tax rate will the employed be willing to tolerate to support the non-workers and for how long will they tolerate it? Political power will rest in their hands since they will provide the means to fund government.
How much freedom will the non-working population be permitted?
How will they find meaning in their lives?
Will the elite increasingly see them as 'useless eaters', taxing the environment? There's already an environmental dogma of earth first that will underpin this view.
other than that, the future is going to be fine... in 5-10 years the millennials will all be forgotten in the working world. The ones that are going to be successful will have "made it" and the ones that didn't will get replaced by the people in high school/college today. This happens in every generation too. Usually there isn't such a large age gap, but there might be a 10 year gap in ages but nothing we haven't seen before in the work force
The problem is that social instability and unemployment are closely linked, so this has as much to do with the stability of society and how neighborhoods can look when swaths of jobs are wiped out (think Detroit). When some jobs come back, these jobs come back very differently, i.e. not the same kind of jobs and usually not filled by the same demographics but new ones that move in (then we see gentrification).
The question is, how will society organize itself if a much smaller percentage of people can find employment in a workforce dominated by robots?
All of your points have been addressed. If things remain pretty much as they are, with power hungry oligarchs calling the shots, then the future will suck for most people. It will be somewhere between extermination and being "entertained" in reasonable comfort until we die off.
The alternative where we all join hands and share the wealth, and have greater freedom with no need to work, seems hopelessly naive at this point.
The alternative where we all join hands and share the wealth, and have greater freedom with no need to work, seems hopelessly naive at this point.
you mean where "free" money is printed and handed out? I mean if robots do all the work, it doesn't cost much to "produce", if the cost is only to "maintain" the robots...
So just give everyone food stamps and the robot owners/caretakers get better stamps, and the rest get generic food items ... hm, sounds like money today lol
but my thought is that millennials will become irrelevant in 10 years or so, we just need to get the enough of the Gen Z into the work force. Millennials are already used to the low paying jobs so the Gen Z will skip those and take the higher skilled jobs and robotics won't play that big of a role as people fear
All of your points have been addressed. If things remain pretty much as they are, with power hungry oligarchs calling the shots, then the future will suck for most people. It will be somewhere between extermination and being "entertained" in reasonable comfort until we die off.
So you're seeing mandatory sterilization in that future? Otherwise, the need to sustain non-workers continues forever.
So you're seeing mandatory sterilization in that future? Otherwise, the need to sustain non-workers continues forever.
why? If the resources are so "spread out" due to such a large population... people will eventually die younger too because they don't have enough resources to sustain them for a full life
you know, carrying capacity...
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