January 2, 2017 at 6:22 am
My 2 cents:
1. While there is general displacement, there are still opportunities for people who are (were) highly skilled in the displaced occupation. The weaver machines were much faster, but only "good enough", but hand weavers with skill could still command a price from people who could tell the difference and afford it. There are a lot of occupations like that today and people are making a living "doing it the old/hard way".
2. The capitalist profit motive most often means the efficiencies created by technology affords more people being hired to produce more and sell more. Only in very small companies, does it mean stay the same or less. In fairness, I would suppose in production line-type facilities the net change of people to robots, where 3 production lines using robots instead of 1, might be the same or less people.
3. For our field - data in general, I can't see anyone being displaced by my increase in efficiency and accuracy. Although, that probably means I will be the one displaced eventually (ha!). That comes back to the original point - we are accustomed to the living under the mantra - change/learn or die.
January 2, 2017 at 7:41 am
In many cases the job itself doesn't really get eliminated, it's just that the requirements of the role get redefined. Sales associates become call center representatives, commercial architects become eCommerce software engineers, journalists become bloggers, teachers become online lecturers, truck drivers become.. that dude who sits in the passenger seat on standby because it's the law.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 2, 2017 at 9:29 am
David.Poole (1/2/2017)
In the 1980s in the UK we had the miners strike and the decimation of the coal industry. Those communities that recovered did so after a few decades. Some places never recovered. I feel that we are close to a technological tipping point where wide the scale of the change makes it unmanageable by even the best managers. I think we are in for huge social unrest and a difficult couple of decades
Me, too. I think this will be a huge challenge in the future for most countries.
January 2, 2017 at 9:37 am
Craigmeister (1/2/2017)
My 2 cents:1. While there is general displacement, there are still opportunities for people who are (were) highly skilled in the displaced occupation. The weaver machines were much faster, but only "good enough", but hand weavers with skill could still command a price from people who could tell the difference and afford it. There are a lot of occupations like that today and people are making a living "doing it the old/hard way".
2. The capitalist profit motive most often means the efficiencies created by technology affords more people being hired to produce more and sell more. Only in very small companies, does it mean stay the same or less. In fairness, I would suppose in production line-type facilities the net change of people to robots, where 3 production lines using robots instead of 1, might be the same or less people.
3. For our field - data in general, I can't see anyone being displaced by my increase in efficiency and accuracy. Although, that probably means I will be the one displaced eventually (ha!). That comes back to the original point - we are accustomed to the living under the mantra - change/learn or die.
1. yes and no. There are less jobs at a societal level here, and it becomes harder for the specialized individuals to earn a living. There will always be a few people doing a job, but many get displaced.
2. This is sometimes true, sometimes not. We've seen an expansion in our industry for this, but in many companies, there is a contraction. A few companies grow larger, which does mean more hiring. But look at retail. Overall, we've seen a decline because there are fewer (larger) stores. So there are less workers in even large companies (some of whom have died, some have moved to more specialized niches or smaller stores.). Take Sears. they have become a smaller company, smaller stores, more nichey, with people working as sales and stockers to limit labor. Wal-Mart/Target have grown, but they use less workers per sq foot and $ in revenue. There's a net, societal contraction here.
3. We're still expanding and having new jobs and new opportunities as more and more companies grow to adopt high levels of tech. However, I would guess in the next decade, we may have some contraction. We lose some hardware people, sys admins, maybe some data pros. We get new data scientists, more developers, but I'm not sure this will be a net gain or loss yet. Could go either way.
January 2, 2017 at 9:39 am
Eric M Russell (1/2/2017)
In many cases the job itself doesn't really get eliminated, it's just that the requirements of the role get redefined. Sales associates become call center representatives, commercial architects become eCommerce software engineers, journalists become bloggers, teachers become online lecturers, truck drivers become.. that dude who sits in the passenger seat on standby because it's the law.
True, but we have less jobs overall. The truck driver that has to sit in the passenger seat? Because he doesn't have to concentrate as much or drive, he can work more hours. Good for him, may keep his salary up, but net, across a large society, we have less of those people. Sales associates moving to call centers, in general, less pay, less of them (they can multi-task better), and are more easily replaceable. Again, net loss to society of employment.
January 2, 2017 at 10:23 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (1/2/2017)
David.Poole (1/2/2017)
In the 1980s in the UK we had the miners strike and the decimation of the coal industry. Those communities that recovered did so after a few decades. Some places never recovered. I feel that we are close to a technological tipping point where wide the scale of the change makes it unmanageable by even the best managers. I think we are in for huge social unrest and a difficult couple of decades
Me, too. I think this will be a huge challenge in the future for most countries.
It's true that many traditional industries are becoming decimated, and in some cases (like coal mining for example) this is actually by design on the part of the government. Western counties open their borders to millions of migrant workers on the basis that they are needed to fill jobs even while there is still slack in the national labor force. It seems that if a twenty-something migrant with no experience or local connections can learn how to or install roof tiles or drive a truck, then so can a displaced 40 year old coal miner. How do we reconcile the two narratives: "not enough jobs" versus "not enough workers"? The government itself speaks from both sides of it's mouth depending on which narrative serves it's purpose on any given day.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 2, 2017 at 10:32 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (1/2/2017)
Eric M Russell (1/2/2017)
In many cases the job itself doesn't really get eliminated, it's just that the requirements of the role get redefined. Sales associates become call center representatives, commercial architects become eCommerce software engineers, journalists become bloggers, teachers become online lecturers, truck drivers become.. that dude who sits in the passenger seat on standby because it's the law.True, but we have less jobs overall. The truck driver that has to sit in the passenger seat? Because he doesn't have to concentrate as much or drive, he can work more hours. Good for him, may keep his salary up, but net, across a large society, we have less of those people. Sales associates moving to call centers, in general, less pay, less of them (they can multi-task better), and are more easily replaceable. Again, net loss to society of employment.
Yes, even with driver-less trucks, the law will still mandate that a human "driver" sit in the cab, which probably isn't a bad idea. Of course the skill level demanded will be less. Hopefully the person in the passenger seat will at least have enough training and actual driving experience that they can take over the wheel when duty calls.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 2, 2017 at 10:48 am
Ok, here's a thought. We all know that there are several ways to write a query and that you might deploy any of those methods depending on the situation. Any of those methods could be optimal given the particular situation to which it is applied.
Add to that the amazing and bizarre ways to write a query in a bad way.
Now imagine the AI in the query optimiser reaching the stage where it simply doesn't matter how you write the query, as long as you can write the query or queries to go from the input to the correct output the query optimiser will turn your code into a near perfect execution plan.
All of a sudden it is OUR specialist skills that become obsolete. I can remember one of the Brians (Kelley or Knight) describing the hard won skills to cluster SQL server going from top end specialism to "so what" in one release of SQL Server. For years people at the coal face of IT have been laughing at pundits making Amazing claims for what the computers of the future could do. Knowing the complexity of what would be required to fulfill those dreams it's been easy to dismiss the ideas as science fiction.
I am not laughing now.
There are people in the IT profession who I would say wouldn't have made the grade 10 years ago but are able to do so today due to the frameworks and simplification of the facilities available. The talented and passionate ones are still coming through but I feel that their perceived worth has been diluted by the also-rans.
We are not talking about eliminating manual and semi-skilled labour, we are talking about eliminating the staple white collar jobs.
The Netflix and Spotify recommendation engines already outperform their human counterparts.
January 2, 2017 at 12:07 pm
If you look at coal miners or fry cooks, the job is essentially the same today as 30 years ago. The industry can automate the process of digging coal or dipping a batch of fries in cooking oil. Society can even toss aside coal and fried food altogether on the basis that the end product itself is obsolete or harmful.
But that's not going to happen for those who specialize in integrating business processes with data. IT professionals follow the technology cheese wherever it moves. Of course, what exactly we'll be doing 10 years from now will be very different from what we do today.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 3, 2017 at 7:30 am
David.Poole (1/2/2017)
....Now imagine the AI in the query optimiser reaching the stage where it simply doesn't matter how you write the query, as long as you can write the query or queries to go from the input to the correct output the query optimiser will turn your code into a near perfect execution plan.
....
That's true. Years ago I hand coded and optimized function calls in assembler and also in C, simply because that's what good programmers did. Now (with especially with variants like c#) you hardly need to worry about that. The compiler will unwind a loop, add or delete a variable, or inline a function as it sees fit.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
January 3, 2017 at 7:32 am
I just feel sorry for those pushed out near the end of their working careers. It's a poor time to train for a new career, when you are nearing retirement.
January 3, 2017 at 7:43 am
Iwas Bornready (1/3/2017)
I just feel sorry for those pushed out near the end of their working careers. It's a poor time to train for a new career, when you are nearing retirement.
I believe that even gray haired folks who have worked their whole lives in the same job are more employable than they realize. It's important that we don't take it personally, or become too emotionally attached to any specific job or city.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 3, 2017 at 8:00 am
It's a poor time to train for a new career, when you are nearing retirement.
Actually, retirement, itself, is a new career. My optimistic self believes that whatever definition one chooses for "retirement" one must prepare for it and that the change can be for the better. There's nothing in the discussion I've seen thus far that says this cannot be so for anyone. Harder for some than others, but not set in stone as impossible. It is true in the developed world and especially true in the US.
January 3, 2017 at 8:49 am
never mind, replying to post from 2012
January 3, 2017 at 11:35 am
Craigmeister (1/3/2017)
It's a poor time to train for a new career, when you are nearing retirement.
Actually, retirement, itself, is a new career.
Very much so. For those no-where near retirement start financial planning for it as early as possible. Mind you people approaching the end of paid employment always say that having regretted not listening to the old farts who told them the same thing!
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