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Writing is pretty much on the wall. One should try to jump on the automation bandwagon or get left behind.
Someone needs to design, build, install, troubleshoot, upgrade, write software, design mechanical components, retrofit, etc all this new automation.
Unfortunately, these are all high skill type jobs, and not really the types of jobs that the people being replaced by automation can easily transition to.
What to do with those without an adequate skillset? No idea
been the story of my life . i started life as a pro drummer and didn't want to be on the road anymore and dj's were killing live music so i became an hvac tech and just kept morphing going where the money was . went from pro drummer to hvac tech - to climate control troubleshooter for the mall systems - in to factory automation products - in to becoming a motor control specialist designing control panels for the water pumping and sewage treatment industry - to retirement.
it was all about taking the basic skills i had in hvac controls and expanding that knowledge out continually in to more lucrative areas as the bigger picture changed .
it takes constant work at learning and a plan to move ahead so you can stay ahead of the curve while everyone else is living in the past and chasing ghosts for jobs .
Brilliant response. Absolutely nothing else needs to be said, except in agreement.
There will always be jobs: the problem is that technology tends to eliminate a disproportionate share of what a lot of people (many of them older and less-extroverted) view as "good" jobs.
I spent a frustrating half hour this morning trying to improve my cable TV service ("improvement" from my viewpoint, meaning reducing my bill by eliminating "services" I neither appreciate nor need) The CSR with whom I dealt was, judging from her voice, a long way past her twenties, and forced to parrot a script that only led back to more insulting sales pitches.
Unfortunately, this is too common a pattern in the post-industrial economy; there isn't much of a demand for lighthouse-keepers out there.
But really people in creative roles in high tech are likely to do well everywhere, more and more in the future. But the vast majority of workers aren't there. They assume they will always be able to find some kind of job. But what kind of job could they be useful in, in the future? If the only work experience they have is operating machines on an assembly line, and doing part of the work manually, where are they going to be when the assembly line is 100% automated?
We simply aren't going to have a functioning society where only 5%-10%, even 20%, have the intellectual capacity and skills to be employed.
From the beginning of the industrial revolution people have been worried about job security. The improvement in productivity all along has eliminated jobs but created new jobs. For example, in 1900, about 20% of the jobs in the USA were in farming. Now that's about 2%.
To deal with this people need to adapt, evolve, and learn new skills.
If there are not enough jobs we can create them by fixing our infrastructure.
This is an incredibly naive viewpoint, and you truly have no idea what is coming or understand the gravity of this situation. It is truly the greatest problem that humanity will face in the next 10-20 years.
Anything that can be automated, will be automated in 20 years. Half of the population (probably even 75%) simply does not have the raw intelligence to be a scientist, engineer, or programmer. Any job that the lower class (and most of the middle class) could possible do will be done by machines or software.
Those jobs will not be coming back, and there will be nothing to replace them. Universal welfare or civil unrest will be the only two routes.
Down the road when true artificial intelligence emerges, humanity in general will become obsolete - even scientists and engineers will be replaced by automation at that point. Perhaps the only safe job then might be a politician.
It's amazing how people use what they know from 10 years ago, 20 years ago to try to envision where we are going now. They are all wrong. Automation in the future will not be a relative of what we think automation is now.
Only the top visionary's have any idea of where this is going. Even traditional ways of doing things will be completely different in even 10 years.
We are at a pivot point and soon there will be a massive shift in robotics, automation, programing, medical, legal, construction, etc.. Up the street from me they are adding a lane to the highway and I noticed that a few pieces of equipment were running with no human involvement, each would have required a man to drive it before.
The jobs that will be the last to be automated are the technical type, plumbing, electricians, mechanics, carpenters, etc.. But, these to will be automated eventually.
We went trough the manufacturing evolution and then the digital evolution and coming quit is the robotic revolution. As in any revolution, there will by bugs but eventually all these will be worked out and robotic system will run for years and maybe decades with no maintenance. So even jobs to maintain them will slowly go away.
There is a good book available called "America 3.0 Rebooting American prosperity", that has an interesting take on the next 50 years.
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