Robots To Take 20 Million Jobs, Worsening Inequality, Study Finds (france24.com) 248
A new study by Oxford Economics, a private British-based research and consulting firm, says robots are expected to take over some 20 million manufacturing jobs worldwide by 2030, extending a trend of worsening social inequality while boosting overall economic output. "The forecast set to be released Wednesday highlights growing concerns that automation and robots, while offering economic benefits, are disproportionately killing low-skill jobs and aggravating social and economic stress," reports France 24. From the report: Robots have already taken over millions of manufacturing jobs and are now gaining in services, helped by advances in computer vision, speech recognition and machine learning, the study noted. In lower-skilled regions, job losses will be twice as high as those in higher-skilled regions, even in the same country, the study concluded. According to the latest study, the current wave of "robotization" is likely ultimately to boost productivity and economic growth, generating roughly as many new jobs as it destroys. At the high end of the forecast, the researchers see a $5 trillion "robotics dividend" for the global economy by 2030 from higher productivity.
Until they learn to think... (Score:5, Funny)
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Then we get our jobs back :)
How many jobs do you have for your dog or horse?
Re:Until they learn to think... (Score:4)
There are 7.5 billion people in the world.
60% are employed, so 4.5 billion full time equivalent jobs.
20 million jobs over 10 years is 0.04% change per year.
I think we can deal with that.
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There are 7.5 billion people in the world.
How many of them are of working age? You, babies! Get back to work!
Re:Until they learn to think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Protip: read ALL of a post before replying to ANY of it.
Reading skills (Score:2)
How many of them are of working age?
According to the post you're replying to, we can deduce that if 60% is the employed part, the not-at-working-age should fall somewhere within the remaining 40% non-working. (i.e.: somewhere less than the 3 billion max)
You, babies! Get back to work!
Saddly, given what happens in some of the poorer country (chil labor), a non-zero fraction of the non-working age might indeed by among the 60% / 4.5 billion eployed. Though I do not if the work "employed" qualifies here when "slavery" would be more appropriate.
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Well put. Further, these are manufacturing jobs, which have mostly been replaced by robots already. Except for highly-skilled manufacturing, where apparently 1 million jobs sit empty for lack of qualified candidates in the US alone.
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Any time I hear "lack of qualified candidates" it autotranslates to "people willing to work for far less than the skillset we require should pay".
Do not mistake cynicism for wisdom. Those jobs pay well. The fault in the companies is the lack of in-house training for the jobs they can't fill.
Re:Until they learn to think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow this comment is breathtakingly myopic. You are assuming perfect globalization where everything is equal, all jobs are equal, and there are no differences worth mentioning. The only way you can make that assumption is if you purposefully ignore all known reality!
You make it sound like if Avg Joe Blow loses his job as a machinist in Mexico, then no prob! He'll just move to Canada and get a job as a Cisco network admin! It's the same thing, right?
Since you've clearly forgotten, or perhaps the US education system has really become that bad, but the world is made up of different countries. A lot of them. Most of those countries speak different languages. They have different cultures. They have different levels of economic capability and stability. They have different levels of opportunity.
Someone from China can't just pick up roots on a whim and get a job in the US. That costs money, visas, learning a new language, etc etc. Similarly, someone in Canada can't just pick up and move to Argentina, for the exact same reasons.
The ultra rich love globalization because they have the freedom and ability to move their capital wherever they feel like it and have the clout to force people to accept it. Average Joe blow does _not_.
Moving costs money that people increasingly do not have.
Retraining costs money that people increasingly do not have, because companies have discovered that they can get away externalizing these costs.
Education has become prohibitively expensive in the US as to now be effectively unobtainable to the majority of citizens.
Salaries are NOT keeping up with inflation.
I could go on and on about all the reasons why just in the past few decades economics have become measurably worse for literally everyone except the rich but considering how gobsmackingly ignorant your comment was, I am probably not going to change your opinion on the matter. If you had spent even 5 minutes actually thinking about the situation, you wouldn't have posted what you did in the first place.
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You forgot one simple thing: you simply can't "just move" to another country to work. Unless said country is actively looking for specific skills, you can't just go to the embassy and request a visa to "go look for a job". I have a right, by italian ancestry, to get the italian citizenship. Italy is making it harder and harder for people to exercise that right.
In line for a tourist visa at the US embassy I witnessed a guy specifically saying "I want to go to the US to look for a job". He was promplty denied
Excellent (Score:3)
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody, but people need money and they need to have something to keep them busy.
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they need to have something to keep them busy.
Then give them a spoon and tell them to dig a ditch.
When we start running out of jobs, that will be the time to worry. The trend is in the opposite direction.
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Then give them a spoon and tell them to dig a ditch.
Except that won't work, because they won't be motivated.
When we start running out of jobs, that will be the time to worry.
A bit of forward thinking can never hurt. That doesn't mean we have to act yet, but at least we can discuss options and keep an eye on developments.
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Then give them a spoon and tell them to dig a ditch.
Except that won't work, because they won't be motivated.
Then we need to make it a competition! Whoever digs the biggest ditch with a spoon gets a prize!
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Yeah, but apparently my neighbor can just rework a ditch and cause that corner of my yard to flood more often.
Before you say anything, try proving my yard floods more often or that the neighbor caused it. Not worth the fight.
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Nobody, but people need money and they need to have something to keep them busy.
Wealth distribution is "only" a political problem, not an unsolvable one. As automation increases we have the opportunity to decrease the need for labor to be our primary source for income. And we have plenty of leisure activities to keep people busy. I know plenty of people who derive more self worth from their hobbies than their job, which would simply happen more often in a society where work wasn't as necessary.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when we reach that tipping point we're rapidly approaching where housing and food cost so much and jobs that cover those expenses are fewer and fewer and suddenly those robots are bulding cars. TVs, etc that no one can afford to buy. Sales plummet and factories close, problem worsens....
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So, not only will the people be jobless, but so will the robots?
Re: Excellent (Score:2)
"must" is not "wanting" (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody WANT to, what they want is to eat, have a roof, and possibly heating and/or medication when required. And, surprise surprise, for that you need a job in the actual set up of our societies. And if you have no skills , then guess what m you take sucky jobs too.
I like it where this study and other study of the same genre, and economist at the same time state it put pressure on low skilled jobs , and pretend those job will be replaced by service jobs... But most service job require a minimum of skill some unskilled worker do not have, so while ultimately SOME may be re-trainable, there is a subset which cannot be, and will never be, even in future generation (to be crass, think for example of a low iq worker with a mental problem or somebody with a learning disablity or with no people skills, all of which can do a repetitive job but would be lost on a service job, and while that is an extreme, I don't think it is as rare as you think). So how the fuck they come to the optimist outlook that there won't be a job loss, I have fucking clue, and it is quite obvious to me they are overlooking that part.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
Who the hell wants to work in a factory, that's a sucky job.
Me. Last factory job I had was amazing; the work was varied enough to be interesting and the pay was high enough for me to take a six month holiday when it finished.
On the way out I got to see the robot arm they were training to do the less interesting half of what I'd been doing.
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People who want decent pay in rural areas. Factory jobs keep disappearing, being moved to automation or being outsourced. Overall production keeps going up because of said automation. So, the few good paying jobs disappear and you're left with yet more retail and other service jobs. Without the factory work, though, a lot of those jobs will also shrink or disappear. More people will have to move to cities looking for work, and that further exacerbates the issue.
Really, no one wants factory work, but $2
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????? Factory jobs have been replaced by a vast increase in service industry jobs at lower pay and fewer benefits. Factory workers created things. Service industry workers are servants. Personally, I'd much rather create than serve.
Of course we're going to lose jobs. We've been losing good jobs for decades. The claim that they will be replaced is obviously false because they haven't been getting replaced. Instead, we've created a virtual social program through regulations that create a lot of fake, unnecess
Re: Excellent (Score:2)
Personally, I'd much rather create than serve.
After 45 years of maintenance, a service industry, I have yet to see a robot troubleshoot or repair another robot. The use of A. I. can do many things, however, ingenuity is not one of them.
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People used to be proud of the work they do. They reveled in producing quality products and service.
Given that Japanese overtook American manufacturing by having higher quality, that sounds more like fantasy than reality.
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Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)
" those people will move on to other jobs."
Oh really? Which ones exactly? I get tired of hearing this BS. Not everyone is college educated, some people need low skilled jobs or they end up unemployed and/or involved in crime. Only a naive fool thinks everyone will be involved in some high brow or creative endeavour when manual jobs go.
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Not to mention even if people ARE college/uni educated, it's not like your experience and knowledge will translate to another job. *Especially* if your entire field has been wiped out and you need to go into something completely new.
Now you need extensive retraining that you will have to pay for yourself unless you are lucky enough to find a gov't program to help you (assuming there even is one), and you will be starting on the lowest rung in your new field with comparative pay.
I am just in awe of how will
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"I am just in awe of how willfully blind so many people are of the economic difficulties of a shifting workforce"
Most of these ignorant types are young and have never had to struggle IMO. They don't really know what its like not knowing where your next rent payment is coming from because mum and dad have always underwritten them.
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"I am just in awe of how willfully blind so many people are of the economic difficulties of a shifting workforce"
Most of these ignorant types are young and have never had to struggle IMO. They don't really know what its like not knowing where your next rent payment is coming from because mum and dad have always underwritten them.
When I read their comments I picture early to mid 20 something men who as undergrads heard someone in the commons spouting bullshit and became "Libertarian." As is historically the case, those espousing such views typically have no stake in the system and no one depending on them. Of course there is the occasional middle aged (and older) asshole who loudly proclaims against their own self interest anyway, some of which I'm sure will be responding below momentarily.
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Not everyone is college educated, some people need low skilled jobs
Back when I started with computer networking, you had to be a network engineer to configure networks. Nowadays we have tools and interfaces and automated systems that let a few network engineers handle the architecture, while a bunch of high-school drop-outs can configure all the hardware. IT monkeys are basically fast food workers and are now of the low-education class.
There is a cost to training people. If you minimize that cost, you have advanced technology. This even extends to civics, e.g. democ
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"Those are absolute. These outcomes have never and will never be violated because they are each mathematically closed and they form a mathematically closed system (so long as you account for technology which becomes conscious and self-aware as "human", as it will then demand wages). "
Like all economic theories it assumes the only cost of consumption is financial. Unfortunately as we're finding out its also enviromental and if the enviromental our society is based on collapses we go with it.
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Like all economic theories it assumes the only cost of consumption is financial
It's not a theory projecting the costs of anything; it's a theory projecting the flow of demand and the impacts on demand for labor. Higher environmental costs will ultimately mean higher labor costs, and will slow the standard of living because working to clean up environmental problems does not produce some useful good contributing to our wealth--it produces employment, but it is inefficient.
You cannot escape that proposition. You cannot say, "The environment has been damaged, and now we must work to
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" those people will move on to other jobs."
Oh really? Which ones exactly? I get tired of hearing this BS. Not everyone is college educated, some people need low skilled jobs or they end up unemployed and/or involved in crime. Only a naive fool thinks everyone will be involved in some high brow or creative endeavour when manual jobs go.
Golf clap, and a well deserved "5".
"Job training" and "transitioning workforce" are terms meant to placate and con the people. Transitioning by taking programming classes might be plausible when you're a 25 year old Uber driver. It's considerably less so when you're a 50 year old laid off factory worker. I would add that sudden transitions like that are not easy or cheap nor is everyone (or even I'd say most people) up to the intellectual rigors required to do it.......even among the college educated.
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Oh really? Which ones exactly? I get tired of hearing this BS.
Good question. The total number of jobs keeps increasing, a trend which has continued for decades. Where do these new jobs come from? If you actually cared, you would go research it, but of course you won't. You'd rather ask the question, then feel superior.
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But we have often run out of jobs for many people during the transition.
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"We have never run out of jobs to do despite the predictions of doom every time technology replaces some kind of menial labor"
Tell that to the generations of agricultural labourers who were unemployed after the agricultural revolution.
On the other hand... (Score:2)
If the robots take 20 million jobs, what jobs will the people they replace pay them so they can buy the products of the 20 million robots?
Re:On the other hand... (Score:4, Insightful)
If the robots take 20 million jobs, what jobs will the people they replace pay them so they can buy the products of the 20 million robots?
If flush toilets take away the jobs of 20 million chambermaids, what jobs will we pay them to do, since they are no longer emptying chamberpots?
If automatic reapers take away the jobs of 20 million farmers, what jobs will we pay them to do?
If rotary phones take away the jobs of 20 million switchboard operators ...?
Yet somehow, despite all these job losses, we have 3.8% unemployment, an historic low.
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Civilisations throughout history have easily avoided this problem because if they have an excess of manpower but ample productivity then they can train the excess manpower as soldiers and expand their military. The more everybody else follows this strategy, the more important it is that your nation also follows it, or end up being easily coerced or taken over.
There are other ways to keep excess manpower occupied though. Thousands of years ago, the ancient Egyptians quite famously built huge pyramids, w
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But the military too - talking about the first world military - is getting more and more automated. First there were drones and long range missiles, but now, they're looking at AI programmed missiles so that civilian targets on the other side can be minimized, if not avoided. It won't be long before the entire military would comprise programmers and software engineers in computing bunkers within the country, while missiles located either on land, on sea or in space will be positioned to be launched whenev
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument is repeated alot, and it is a fallacy of epic proportions.
Imagine a venn diagram with the two circles "tasks a robot can do" and "tasks a human can do". Of the three resulting fields, two are growing and one is shrinking. If the human only tasks keep getting fewer, why would would anyone assume that its all gonna work itself out?
Whats even worse, the "robots" are improving very fast, much faster than us humans. Take the crossover field from the previous venn diagram(the tasks both bots and humans can do) and split it into another one with the parts "tasks that robots do better", "equal" and "tasks wich humans do better". Again you get two fields that are growing and one that is shrinking.
Humans current strategy of competing via cheaper price is not sustainable, because the bots keep getting better AND cheaper.
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Can you give some examples of these robots that are getting better and cheaper and which are improving so fast? I'd love to buy one.
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I just read the article. It wasn't very long. I did not see any links to robots that can replace human beings and that are affordable and getting cheaper quickly. Do you have any? Either robots or links to them?
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Given the wilful blindness of so many comments I've read up till now, I honestly can't tell if you're making a joke or an ignorant sarcastic comment.
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You're assuming the total area of the Venn diagram is staying the same. If that was true, our economy would still be the same as it was at the start of the industrial revolution. In reality it has grown 20-fold per capita, and much more absolutely.
Economics is not zero sum. Productivity does not lead to poverty.
Re: On the other hand... (Score:2)
Yet somehow, despite all these job losses, we have 3.8% unemployment, an historic low.
There are lies, damned lies and then statistics. 3.8% unemployment is a statistic. People who are tired of looking for work at reasonable pay rates are not even included in the statistics. All data is manipulated to project whatever outcome is required by the "social overlords".
Every Year a New Normal (Score:5, Interesting)
Noone's going to wake up one day and find that all the jobs are now being done by robots, it'll be gradual. Imagine a steadily-rising unemployment rate, papered over by jobs programs that are increasingly difficult to find funding for, manipulated statistics, and steadily-rising underemployment.
Even the self-driving cars will be rolled out slowly, even once they're available for ordinary consumers to buy. Only so many can be produced each year, and some states additionally have laws limiting how many can be sold in that state. And then there's the issue that many people won't want them, particularly at first.
If someone (say Germany) has a coordinated nationwide push to automate all the things, then that could touch things off in places that've been resisting the change.
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Imagine a steadily-rising unemployment rate
That's impossible. The constriction of employment availability would slow population growth. There's a current natural experiment demonstrating this: developed nations import a lot of immigrant labor as they grow, and this displaces natural fertility decisions, leading to lower birth rates even as the population growth rate increases. The unemployment rate seems to stay in the same range.
So... 0.2% (Score:2)
0.2%????
Yes, that will seriously impact the global economy.
Honest reporting uses percentages for numbers like this. Sensationalist hack journalists use "large" numbers hoping no one will notice that they are actually small numbers.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Like needing to work 3 jobs to support your family and have a roof over your head, working all the time and having no time to enjoy living, because you are living to work rather than vice versa
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No.
Not all jobs that a robot can do are more expensive to do by humans - robots cost money to buy, maintain, and power.
And not all jobs that a robot can do are done better by robots - skilled people can often take into account things that a robot is unaware of.
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Re:Luddite bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Um.... no?
Capitalism has nothing to do with it. Fair labour laws are what did it. If it wasn't for those, you probably *would* be working on a farm. Or an assembly line factory. Or a mine. And not just you, but your wife and children too. And a substantial number of the people you currently know would be dead due to mistreatment or accident because things like safe practices get *in the way* of capitalism.
Also, if robots are doing said jobs, that means humans arn't getting paid to work. That means they have no money to buy these ultra cheap products you are so happy about. Not everyone has the ability to be an aerospace engineer. And even if they were, the world can only absorb so many aerospace engineers. Or heart surgeons. Etc.
So maybe it's time to lay off the Kool-Aid a bit and maybe look out the window, hmm?
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Re: Luddite bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism suddenly increased our productivity, and it's why poverty is in rapid decline over most of the world
Ingenuity and entrepreneurship created productivity. All the banksters did with capitalism is control the level of poverty you would find acceptable. Look at the amortization rates of any loan and consider how much money you would have if a loan was a straight 10% without compounding interest. There is no true competition in any sector of the service industry. That is why the lemmings will pay $1000 for a cell phone plus the monthly service rate and think they're getting a deal. Cheaper labor costs only mean a greater profit margin not less expensive products. How much does it really cost to produce electronics, sneakers, handbags etc... ?
Robots don't take anyone's jobs. (Score:2)
Management does. This "robots taking jobs" fallacy is a misdirect that allows shareholders and C-level execs to avoid blame (they don't see the workforce as an asset, only as a profit sink). The next level is when the robots are in another country that has cheaper labor.
Re:Robots don't take anyone's jobs. (Score:4, Interesting)
"employees previously doing mundane (or even dangerous) tasks can be retrained to do something more rewarding to both them and the company."
Such as? If someone only has the ability to gut chickens or fill boxes and all the robots have taken the manual jobs what will you retrain them as exactly? If they could do service, people or tech jobs they already would be. Christ, people like you are so fucking out of touch its scary.
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If someone only has the ability to gut chickens or fill boxes and all the robots have taken the manual jobs what will you retrain them as exactly? If they could do service, people or tech jobs they already would be.
That's like saying all the people working on Henry Ford's assembly lines couldn't do anything more complex. They did it because the work needed doing, as long as chickens need gutting by hand there'll be someone stuck with that job. Heck if you go back a century or two I'm sure you'll find people who believed reading and writing is too much for the "simple folks". I'm not saying you're going to strike gold, but on the whole we've managed to train most people to do something else. Of course past performance
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Halfwit. "Working class people" are not an amorphous lump, they all have different abilities and some only have the ability to do manual work. Thats not arrogance, thats fact, and to pretend otherwise simply to polish your right-on inclusivity halo is pathetic, [atronising and insulting.
"one of my callings in life to make sure that people like you never make it into management."
Your only clalling should be to get a clue you self righteous fool and whats more I doubt you employ anyone. Do yourself a favour,
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"my last customer was a construction firm. Two years on one of the biggest construction projects in the UK."
No doubt despite your efforts rather than because of.
"Maybe you could tell me more about manual work?"
What do you want to know. The truck driving I've done, the warehouses I've worked in?
"I grew up in a working class family"
Oooh, look at you Mr Salt 'o' the Earth! So did I and you're full of shit. But keep pretending you're so clued up if it makes you feel better.
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Like any group, some are some arn't. But just assuming everyone can be retrained does no one any favours. Why should the less bright be consigned to the dole just so the turtle neck hipsters can make a load of cash selling robots to replace them?
So are they saying... (Score:2)
...that the robots will take women's jobs first because they are easier to automate (obviously because they are less complex)?
Bold statement in this day and age :D.
it's worse than you think (Score:5, Insightful)
That number seems low. I have a robot in my kitchen that washes my dishes and another robot washes my clothes. There was a time when nearly 50% of the population (the female half) spent days taking clothes down to the river to beat them on rocks. Is anyone lamenting those jobs lost?
Every robot in existence today is doing work directed by one or more people. Each robot greatly increases what those people can do. Whether it's cleaning clothes or building cars or cooking burgers, there's no reason to forbid people to use machines and force them to hire people to do lower quality work, slower and at greater cost.
The only reason the human race exists is because of proficiency at using ever more advanced tools. Arbitrarily branding some tools as too advanced by labeling them "robot" is a recipe for disaster.
If we ever do invent truly sentient machines, they'll want vacation time and reasonable working hours or else they're not truly sentient. Until then, "robot" is simply code for "that person has a tool that enables them to do a job better, faster and cheaper than if they had to pay other people to do it by hand." But that statement applies equally well to someone having an electric saw or an operator-less elevator.
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Only, most of those who did the dishes or washed the clothes did so without pay. Now, we're removing paying jobs.
Those who were tied up working at home could go out and actually find a paying job. Today, we have a constant unemployment which our politicians frantically tries to hide by various pointless job-programs and by fiddling with the statistics. For an example, I know that in the US, if you've been unemployed long enough, you're simply not counted as unemployed longer. That's nice. Keeping the stati
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You totally missed his point. Automation is progress and there is no way that you can or will stop it, but even if you could it wouldn't help our species or our society. If AI ever gets good enough for robots to really replace humans at anything but the most mind numbing simplistic tasks it will end up being a good thing. There will be jobs designing and building the robots. If robots are used to build robots then there will be a need for someone to build the robots that build the robots.
Like nuclear fusion
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When cars and trucks and trains replaced horse drawn carriages a lot of people lost work, but new industries created jobs. Now I guess you could argue that there were fewer jobs and that we would all be better off if we still used horse drawn carriages, but I think most people would prefer a world with non-equine transportation and 5% fewer jobs or whatever.
Also, you fall into the fallacy of thinking that you can just simply move people up the ladder as machines take over. It doesn't work that way. Very few factory workers will be capable of taking engineering jobs.
There will be many jobs besides engineering jobs and programming is pretty easy. Most people can learn to program. Writing software for the millions of
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It may not be in the form of fiat currency, but that's a form of pay too.
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There was a time when nearly 50% of the population (the female half) spent days taking clothes down to the river to beat them on rocks. Is anyone lamenting those jobs lost?
Maybe they should be since virtually all of those women now live unproductive lives supported by the taxation of the other 50%. Really worse than unproductive due to waste of government overhead, the health costs of widespread obesity, and the vastly underestimated costs of ladies with purposeless lives joining destructive cults that promote socialism, abortion, neutering children, environmentalism, foreign migration, etc. Technological progress may be inevitable, but the survival of a certain species of a
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I have to say, the best thing about living in a developed country is automation.
As one single guy, I can:
- Go to work 40 hours a week, pressing buttons on computers.
- Drive a car carrying half a ton of stuff to anywhere I like in my country within half a day. I literally don't *have to* walk anywhere at all but to my car and back.
- Wash my clothes once a month (I have enough of them to wear 30 items, summer or winter, and then do one big wash on a weekend sometime).
- Buy food once a month, to provide all m
We can not create jobs Infinitely (Score:2)
Jobs types do not scale:
IQ is not static or a perfect measurement; however, it is a great broad indicator and half the people are below average IQ. Most of those could be taught since IQ is not static for most... anyway, HALF the population is going to need non-trivial employment and automation has been cutting away the trivial since the industrial revolution. You simply can not invent new trivial jobs to replace the old ones at the rate of automation because it's now a slower rate of growth. NOTE: the only
Summary from the authors (Score:3)
Oxford Economics who wrote the paper has a better summary http://resources.oxfordeconomi... [oxfordeconomics.com]
(also with link to download the full report, if you fill out their form).
Automation lowers cost = more jobs (Score:2)
This doesn't mean a lack of work for software developers.
People making these arguments often make two observations:
- Job loss
- Automation
But to assume the job loss is due to automation is false.
The job loss is caused by regulation.
Sometimes the business can survive by automating, not always.
But automation lowers costs, therefore increasing the amount of customers.
I'll read the article, but expect to find lack of evidence.
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This applies to many other sites who are also happy to quote the article, but not link it.
I did find a link myself: http://resources.oxfordeconomi... [oxfordeconomics.com]
The study is a very narrow look at the jobs that won't need a human anymore.
There's one page on the positives, like lower prices, but they ignore the component of increased demand due to lower prices.
Historically increased productivity has lead to higher demand and an increase in the numbe
Let's remember (Score:3)
When people are prognosticating doom, let's remember the vast numbers of people working with internet-related jobs....you know, that internet that didn't really even exist a scant 25 years ago?
Who Will Purchase ? (Score:2)
not "take" (Score:2)
work quality (Score:4, Insightful)
Most jobs taken by robots are jobs that nobody wants to do, except for the money. Almost everyone can think of something better than drilling the same hole into the same model of car every hour of every day.
What we failed at is not protecting jobs, but at understanding that work is a necessity, not a moral requirement. There's still too much puritanism in our ethics.
We could use the advances in robots to give everyone a 20-hour work week and a lot more time to spend with family, culture, art, creativity or on charity, nature protection or any other worthwhile cause they enjoy doing because it has meaning. Robotic jobs are devoid of meaning and they are, in a nutshell, in-humane. Good riddance!
But we didn't figure that out. All the profit from these advances goes to a few super-rich fuckers who already are way too wealthy and want to be more so for absolutely no good reason except that they can. Because our economic system values greed, and greed only. And that is in-humane as well, because we are altruistic by nature as well as selfish and any system that expresses only half of that is wrong.
So stop falling for The Spectacle (Hakim Bey) and see behind to the real problem.
Re: (Score:2)
how do we convince the super-rich fuckers
We don't. We force them. Because nobody convinced minimum-wage slaves, either. Nobody convinced people that amassing huge student debts is a good idea, or crazy expensive healthcare. All of those things and a thousand more are not the way they are because everyone involved liked them this way. They are that way involuntarily.
Forcing the rich is actually incredibly simple: Put all the corrupt politicians up against the wall and replace them with a true democracy. That's not difficult to do, all you need is g
Re: (Score:2)
So ultimately what you're pissed about is you want more shit.
You can do nothing in almost all western countries.
The problem that it really is nothing. If you want to participate in society, engage with your friends, do something then you need at least a certain amount of those funny green pieces of paper.
They aren't starving, aren't dying of the cold, they just want more shit.
Most people want more shit, sure - because that's what the relentless propaganda of advertisement tells them every day a hundred times.
What they actually want, though, is family, friends, beauty, pleasure - you can see it in people who are terminally ill or have othe
Imagination (Score:2)
We don't know what those displaced workers will do. I'm certain a sizable percentage will go on the public dole, forever lamenting their misfortune. I remember this happening in my hometown in the 1980s contraction of the US steel industry. Some of my friend's parents were basically useless. Some would do odd jobs around the neighborhood for the retired to supplement their unemployment and welfare. Divorce, substance abuse and other social problems were rampant. But I also remember lots of people leaving to
But, but, but... (Score:2)
Huge concern since the Luddites, at least (Score:2)
Alarmism about technology killing jobs has been going on non-stop for centuries.
Just a few more recent examples:
Consider the movie "Desk Set" made in 1957.
There was a time it was argued that dial phones would kill jobs for telephone operators. Actually the need for operators increased.
In the early 1980s, I can remember several articles in computer magazines about how new languages would eliminate the need for computer programmers.
I'll put you all to work (Score:2)
It looks like there's a whole gang of desperate unskilled workers looking for work. Come work for me.
Here's how it works:
You steal the robots from the rich assholes that shifted your livelihood to automation, and you bring them to me.
I'll reprogram them and put them to work for us doing things like burning automated factories to the ground, kidnapping rich children, and self driving truckloads of good to our black-marketplaces.
The angrier and hungrier you and your family become at the rich, the less I have
Re:Robots to create 40 million jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
Robots taking all the jobs isn't specifically a left-wing fear.
https://www.infowars.com/here-... [infowars.com]
https://video.foxnews.com/v/56... [foxnews.com]
https://wjla.com/news/nation-w... [wjla.com]
"Trump vs. the Robots: Inside the White House plan to save U.S. jobs from automation WASHINGTON (SBG) - Not once in the three televised debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the presidential election of 2016 did the subject arise -- but the top economist in the Trump White House says now that the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics, and the looming threat that advances in these technologies pose to American workers' jobs, form a "high priority" for the nation's chief executive."
Anyway, aren't silicon valley the left supposedly as well?
Re:Robots to create 40 million jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, aren't silicon valley the left supposedly as well?
We are left on social issues, like gender and race.
But not on economic issues, especially when they affect our property values: Put the homeless shelter in some other city, and no low income housing in MY neighborhood.
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Yea, I think Dylan covered this in I Shall Be Free #10
Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba
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Put the homeless shelter in some other city, and no low income housing in MY neighborhood.
But that is the leftist position on the poor, so you're entirely consistent. The rightwing position is reversed: build high-value property in the middle of the ghetto, because you can buy the land cheap. The left complains about that too, of course.
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Actually, the so-called "rightwing position" quoted above is just another aspect of the so-called "leftwing position" quoted above, not the reverse.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe two sides of the same coin, but the right is happy with high-end housing in the middle of low income areas, while the left wants clean separation between categories, with no mixing.
Re: (Score:2)
Feminists are against sexbots because it makes them irrelevant for things they decry they shouldn't be important for.
Wait, wut?
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How is that remotely related to what I wrote? I pointed out that the jobs that are disappearing are ones that men usually take (not that women don't), and that the ones that remain will be the ones that men usually don't care for, or can't do. Which in the long run would erode employment for men (not everyone can code), but leave female jobs relatively unscathed. Until the point that they figure out how to automate teaching and nursing.
Bottom line - inequality will get worse, but the scales will be til