June 17, 2018 at 11:04 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Jobs You Wouldn't Expect To Be Threatened By Tech But Are
June 18, 2018 at 1:08 am
I look forward to the day that football pundits are replaced. Something like http://theelectricmonk.com/about/ should suffice.
June 18, 2018 at 3:31 am
"Robots don't make mistakes" No, but the humans programming them do. Robots don't require sick days? Not exactly, no, but they do suffer hardware failure.
If a shopper in a supermarket pushes over a restocking robot for a laugh it needs standing back up again... There is so much potential for robotics and automation to reduce the amount of work humans have to do, and eventually I can see a lot of the work currently performed by humans being automated, but I don't believe robots will take all our jobs. You can't program for common sense or intuition. We're also miles away from economically replicating the dexterity required for a machine to be as 'general purpose' as a human.
With regard to unemployment, if it got to it the governments would be unable to front the cost of welfare and would be forced to pass bills forcing companies to hire a minimum percentage of human staff. Either that or AI rights activists will push for robots to get equal rights with humans, then there will be no benefit to building robots instead of hiring humans. Either way it'll have to balance out one way or another.
Either that or the robots will end up rising up against us and the supermarket restocking robots will be the ones pushing over shoppers for a laugh, that and maybe taking over the world.... I think I saw a documentary on it once, it was called terminator or matrix or something like that.
Ben
^ Thats me!
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June 18, 2018 at 4:31 am
This comes under the umbrella of disruptive technology. An example of an industry that the article left out was driverless vehicles. Uber and long distance trucking will eliminate millions of these jobs. Plus the ripple effect of services that were once needed for the truckers will also be eliminated or reduced to under 20% of the current levels. The potential upside is these driverless vehicles will need technologically savvy drone drivers at trucking driver centers. It can be a better life for those can get these jobs which will be highly competitive.
There needs to be an needs to be an expansion of government at all levels as an employer of last resort to help those non-technologically savvy individual to have a fulfilling life and without being on welfare as a charity case. Society will divided into two tiers, technologically savvy and those who lack the ability to function in the 21st century technology.
There will be higher paying jobs that will require only 20 to 25 percent of the workforce where to do same job today that requires 100% of the workforce. My takeaway is that people will have to do perpetual self improvement by enhancing their existing skills and learn self-taught and/or investing in training in areas of new expertise in anticipation of what is coming next.
June 18, 2018 at 4:40 am
There has to be a balance here. I mean, if automation will put so many people out of work, then who will be able to buy the stuff that these companies with automated workers sell? Nobody.
Hmmm....
June 18, 2018 at 5:28 am
Peter Heller - Monday, June 18, 2018 4:31 AM... driverless vehicles will need technologically savvy drone drivers at trucking driver centers.
Being a truck driver and being able to work from home doing it... what is the world coming to?
😀
Ben
^ Thats me!
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June 18, 2018 at 6:16 am
BenWard - Monday, June 18, 2018 5:28 AMPeter Heller - Monday, June 18, 2018 4:31 AM... driverless vehicles will need technologically savvy drone drivers at trucking driver centers.Being a truck driver and being able to work from home doing it... what is the world coming to?
😀
It will allow you to keep on trucking from your home in this new world! 😉
June 18, 2018 at 6:27 am
What skills other than becoming like a robot should an IT tech get?
June 18, 2018 at 6:37 am
The UK high street has been rocked by some household names going bankrupt. The retail sector is taking a pounding.
Until recently if you wanted goods or services you had to go to the place providing those goods and services, even for those products that were a cold duty. Who wants to go shopping for bog roll?
What the retail sector has to think about is what retail experience is backed by a pleasurable experience? Waterstones booksellers has a Costa coffee shop in-house in their Manchester (UK) store. Buying a book in that store is a pleasurable experience.
Buying from people who are enthusiastic and knowledgable is far better than buying off Bored Shoeshop Teenager. Certain sports stores are awful sulking emporiums. They can expect me to buy online.
Then there is the aspect of trust. I tried supermarket shopping online but didn't like the way they substituted certain products if the ones I wanted were not available. I could not trust them to supply the goods I ordered.
Banking online is a NO-NO for me. In the UK TSB customers have been complaining about receiving other people's details. Other retailers seem to be suffering significant data breaches. At least physical shopping is relatively anonymous.
Yes, a huge revolution is underway but don't expect the old guard to simply give up and die.
June 18, 2018 at 7:19 am
Peter Heller - Monday, June 18, 2018 6:16 AMBenWard - Monday, June 18, 2018 5:28 AMPeter Heller - Monday, June 18, 2018 4:31 AM... driverless vehicles will need technologically savvy drone drivers at trucking driver centers.Being a truck driver and being able to work from home doing it... what is the world coming to?
😀
It will allow you to keep on trucking from your home in this new world! 😉
I see a great opportunity for profit here... With games like Euro Truck Simulator being as popular as they are, us as software people can bridge the gap, sell a driving game that people pay to play then secretly renting out those drivers to drone companies. We stand to make millions!
Ben
^ Thats me!
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June 18, 2018 at 7:21 am
Sure seems like lots of doom & gloom. Historically automation has freed up human labor to pursue other interests. 35 years ago, when i started in IT, if someone had told the "financial analysts" how much of their jobs computers would be doing today, I'm pretty sure they'd all think their jobs would be long gone. Last time I checked, the "financial analyst" job market still seems to be fairly robust. Point is, automation does take over some aspects of jobs but frees up time to pursue others.
And that's to say nothing about human intuition. Does the author foresee computers taking that over, as well? Sure, with sufficient programming & analysis, computers may be able to achieve an "error-free track record". But only of past results. Artificial intelligence notwithstanding, I seriously doubt computers will be able to foresee (with any accuracy) the next recession or economic downturn any better than humans.
And "day laborers" and "construction workers"? Really? Someone's going to come up with a machine that's cost-effective to do "day laborer" tasks like clean up a yard, trim trees or even fix plumbing in a narrow, confined space? Maybe someday but is not anything over which I'd lose any sleep if I were a day laborer or construction worker.
To be sure, there's no doubt automation will take over some jobs, but again, historically that's opened others up. Case in point: look at the expansion of the IT industry over the past 30-40 years. We're pursuing things in IT that were only dreamed of 30-40 years ago.
IMO, the author has a valid point but carried the conclusions a bit too far.
June 18, 2018 at 8:07 am
While all the industry pundits are celebrating the fact that AI in business is increasing and is being seen as a job disrupter across the board, let's remember something about basic economics.
Labor is a critical component to any economy. In fact, it is far more important than the employer class. Nonetheless, there is a line that cannot be crossed in the reduction of a workforce. Once this line is crossed where Labor has been happily eliminated beyond a certain extent by all the Capitalist class, the economy will collapse because the cycle of natural funding the economy has been broken.
If not enough people can purchase goods because of what is being now done, than there will be no economy to talk about.
To fall back to the adage that there will be new types of jobs to take the place of existing ones; I don't think so, as trends in such areas have demonstrated that job quality is only reduced not increased.
But hey, what do I know??? 🙁
June 18, 2018 at 8:11 am
David.Poole - Monday, June 18, 2018 1:08 AMI look forward to the day that football pundits are replaced. Something like http://theelectricmonk.com/about/ should suffice.
Are you talking about Football or Futbol ?
I have a suspicion that most political pundits in social media were replaced by auto-post bots a decade ago.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
June 18, 2018 at 8:24 am
Victor Kirkpatrick - Monday, June 18, 2018 4:40 AMThere has to be a balance here. I mean, if automation will put so many people out of work, then who will be able to buy the stuff that these companies with automated workers sell? Nobody.Hmmm....
It's a funny thing. It would, indeed, sometimes be faster for me to use "self serve" checkout for a small group of items at the supermarket... I still don't for the very reason you mention. And, I usually thank the cashier and the bagger for being there. I do the same thing with other things. I may research an item I want online but I always try to buy it at a brick and mortar local store. Every little bit helps and I can always drive my truck through the front window if the product breaks and they won't honor their return policy. 😀
Until money becomes available for free, people need to work. Give people the opportunity to work because, someday, it may be you.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
June 18, 2018 at 8:25 am
It's no surprise that, after manufacturing, customer service would be the next industry to be automated. In the past, folks who worked behind the counter or answered the phone were professionals, but today they are just mind numbed human robots who facilitate transactions or read from scripts. In all fairness, they're doing their jobs exactly the way they were trained by corporate management. But it's almost as if they are human prototypes for the next generation of automated bots.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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