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Think about all the jobs that can (and will) be replaced by robots/intelligent machines. You may have seen self checkout lines appearing in grocery stores. It now only takes one worker to do the job of 4. It's the same story all over the place. Farming for example is now highly automated. Have you seen the TV show "How it's Made"? Oftentimes you'll see products manufactured with no human intervention required. Obviously there is machine maintenence and supervision required, but still, it's easy to see that humans are becoming obsolete when it comes to repetitive manual labor. How about the robotic distribution systems of major retailers? Computers and little orange robots have actually taken over entire warehouses- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0
Want to see how they manufacture in Germany?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98aDUQDmUjc&feature=PlayList&p=6C71005ADA4 D933B&index=0
And this is really only the beginning. We all know technology is is increasing at a rapid pace. How long until a computer with artificial intelligence is answering your questions on the phone when you call tech support? Personally, I think it'll be great to get humans out of boring jobs. What I am interested in, is how will society deal with such a change? Will half the population on "welfare"? Because obviously not everyone has what it takes to become scientists, doctors, or robotics programmers- so you can't just say we need to retrain people for new high tech jobs, there just won't be enough.
If it's already considered a problem to have the unemployment and welfare levels we currently have, what will happen as more and more jobs are "outsourced" to machines? I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue.
Think about all the jobs that can (and will) be replaced by robots/intelligent machines. You may have seen self checkout lines appearing in grocery stores. It now only takes one worker to do the job of 4. It's the same story all over the place. Farming for example is now highly automated. Have you seen the TV show "How it's Made"? Oftentimes you'll see products manufactured with no human intervention required. Obviously there is machine maintenence and supervision required, but still, it's easy to see that humans are becoming obsolete when it comes to repetitive manual labor. How about the robotic distribution systems of major retailers? Computers and little orange robots have actually taken over entire warehouses- YouTube - Robotic Distribution
And this is really only the beginning. We all know technology is is increasing at a rapid pace. How long until a computer with artificial intelligence is answering your questions on the phone when you call tech support? Personally, I think it'll be great to get humans out of boring jobs. What I am interested in, is how will society deal with such a change? Will half the population on "welfare"? Because obviously not everyone has what it takes to become scientists, doctors, or robotics programmers- so you can't just say we need to retrain people for new high tech jobs, there just won't be enough.
If it's already considered a problem to have the unemployment and welfare levels we currently have, what will happen as more and more jobs are "outsourced" to machines? I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue.
This has been explored in science fiction for a long time. Some of the classics if the 1950's had this as a core.
No slave wages to machines, infact NO wages. No unions, no insurence.
Some of us can be teachers and scientists and work the service economy, but when cyborg technology reaches the places where the work is done for pennies on the dollar what do they do? China in particular has a vast population which is a great liability when they have nothing to do.
We talk about unemployment today but what happens when there ARE no jobs for a mass of these americans and we can't say they don't want what doesn't exist?
The California gold rush happened because a number of places many people were displaced around the world. In China, the longest water transport system in the world was replaced by a barge. A vast amount of otherwise unusable workers were unemployed and the Chinese government was perfectly happy to give them a ride across the sea. So the growth of technology had created this kind of potential before. Its just that we don't really have the experience.
I am a computer programmer and I am busier than ever right now.
Maybe the attitude of 'Because obviously not everyone has what it takes to become scientists, doctors, or robotics programmers' as you put it is what is holding you back. Give me someone with an open mind and I can teach anyone how to program a computer. The decision to not learn anything new is the attitude of someone who is close minded and has no interest in learning anything new. There are 55 year old people in my office taking programming training classes and doing very well at it. You either adapt to the times or lose your job.
I am a computer programmer and I am busier than ever right now.
Maybe the attitude of 'Because obviously not everyone has what it takes to become scientists, doctors, or robotics programmers' as you put it is what is holding you back. Give me someone with an open mind and I can teach anyone how to program a computer. The decision to not learn anything new is the attitude of someone who is close minded and has no interest in learning anything new. There are 55 year old people in my office taking programming training classes and doing very well at it. You either adapt to the times or lose your job.
I might have been working with you if it hadn't been for the recession of the 80's. I had a certificate from one of the top rated college programs. I had a very good work record and had been intrusted as a trainee with designing and writing a small accounting system. The problem was the company decided to go with contractors and let everyone go. (then had to call several of their former managers back at contractor rates over and over to work on the stuff they could have been paid a regular salary).
I applied all over the place but at a year and a half experience the jobs I'd get were being taken by people with 5/6 years of experience. Three years later I was hired as an entree level programmer at less than my origional salary and due to personal matters took a leave of absence. That was the *official* reason I was let go, but the real one was they couldn't put me on full salary since I hadn't worked there long enough and couldn't ask me to work seven days a week.
I never tried after that.
I'm sure there will be jobs but the problem is no matter how hard you work at learning a new skill and how hard you try to find a job in it, even in the best of economies there are a limited amount of jobs in that field. The hundred that don't get the job will just be out of luck. We need those "lesser" jobs because we can't keep hiring store clerks when people aren't buying and we can't make it on a service economy alone. The guy who is good at his job but his job is gone may be able to retrain but how long with the amount of available jobs will it take to find one, especially competing with those who have experience? How does he/she and the family survive until then?
Think of a city built on sand. An earthquake shakes it and it falls down. Build it on bedrock and its sturdy and you'd barely notice. Unfortunately our "city" is on sand.
I am a computer programmer and I am busier than ever right now.
Maybe the attitude of 'Because obviously not everyone has what it takes to become scientists, doctors, or robotics programmers' as you put it is what is holding you back. Give me someone with an open mind and I can teach anyone how to program a computer. The decision to not learn anything new is the attitude of someone who is close minded and has no interest in learning anything new. There are 55 year old people in my office taking programming training classes and doing very well at it. You either adapt to the times or lose your job.
Do you think computer programming will be a useful skill forever? I think eventually AI based computers will require no traditional programming. So it won't help much to retrain factory workers as computer programmers
The whole point of my post was that there are going to be millions of people eliminated from low skill jobs in the coming years, and what we as societies are going to do about it.
If a factory eliminates 60 jobs and replaces them with 3 robotics technicians, where do the other 57 go? Even if those dispaced workers are ambitious and try to modernize their skills, where will they be needed? Some will be able to find new jobs, but most won't. There are billions of people on the earth, it's absurd to think we can find genuinely useful employment for them all, after our technology is already doing all the truly necessary work for us.
Most food at restaurants will be prepared by machines, but there will still be a high end market for human-chef made food. Pretty much all retail jobs will be gone. Shelves will be stocked by robots, cashiers will be replaced by self serve or robot assisted checkout, inventories will be completely computer managed. Robots will clean the floors and bathrooms. Service desks will be managed by AI's who can help you find anything in the store or answer your questions. You know businesses will choose machine labor over human once it's cheap enough. Robots don't complain, show up late, or even take breaks. They don't need medical insurance or, even wages. Businesses are always looking at the bottom line, and they'll have to modernize to compete.
The entertainment industry, and other creative industries will have jobs available for the talented. There will still be a need for humans in jobs that require high level thinking. There will be opportunites for those talented and creative enough to find a niche, but we don't have a planet of 3 billion brilliant thinkers and creative geniuses. There are plenty of "average" people who won't have a whole lot to offer in terms of their labor. How will these people possibly make a living? Or will making a living even be necessary?
never guna happen. robots dont spend money.
bottom line a capitalist systems needs spenders.
problem now is they dont wana pay us anymore, they want us to credit card the economy
ak selling outselves and our children into slavery.
Do you think computer programming will be a useful skill forever? I think eventually AI based computers will require no traditional programming. So it won't help much to retrain factory workers as computer programmers
The whole point of my post was that there are going to be millions of people eliminated from low skill jobs in the coming years, and what we as societies are going to do about it.
This is fear mongering; computers have been in use for decades.
Almost everything is computerized now.
People need to be retrained into viable jobs.
If there are no jobs, why do people keep reproducing?
Aren't they setting up their own demise?
This is fear mongering; computers have been in use for decades.
Almost everything is computerized now.
People need to be retrained into viable jobs.
If there are no jobs, why do people keep reproducing?
Aren't they setting up their own demise?
Yes, computers have been around for decades, but the computers themselves and the software are really just now becoming advanced enough to do the work that used to require humans. Just think of travel websites like hotwire/expedia/priceline etc. Hardly anyone uses a travel agency anymore (except for cruises, apparently). People are using tax software instead of accountants. Everywhere you look jobs are being eliminated and not being replaced by anything else. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, if it's handled the right way. But you can't just tell these people to "get a job", when there aren't any. We're talking millions of people, they can't all work at walmart.
And why would people stop reproducing because there are no jobs? For most of human history there were no "jobs"- people just hunted and gathered what they could. I guess you could have called survival their job. Even farmers a few hundred years ago didn't really have "jobs", they were just for the most part self-sufficient, growing their own food and taking care of themselves.
I liken this to good old Eli Whitney and the cotton gin. Yes, he created a machine that could do the job of several slaves (in an effort to reduce the number of slaves), but in the end made the business of cotton farming so much more profitable that more slaves were required to work in the booming industry. Robots will do jobs currently employed by people, but if this makes the respective industries more profitable, more people will be needed to do jobs the robots cannot within said industries. This is not to mention the fact that if robots become more widespread, the field of robotics will need vast quantities of new workers.
Let's see, why should we stop reproducing if there are no jobs?
How can you afford food, accommodations, etc?
If you are going to raise people in poverty, what's the point?
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