Will automation take all our jobs?

[Azareal]

I saw @Jason76 making a bunch of these sorts of threads, so I thought of making my own lol

It's the usual fear in the media and among people, will the machines come to take all of our jobs? I can certainly see it happening to drivers in the near future with all these self-driving cars in development.

 

[Eussbig]

Extremely unlikely.

I had an acquaintance of mine who done business for over 30 years who recently attended a NASA meeting. The NASA speaker started listing many job offerings at their headquarters -- many of those jobs she mentioned did not even exist 5 years ago. Jobs are constantly being created, people just need to get more innovative!

 

[Page]

Machines making cars and whatnot. Machines making machines. Yes it will come to it and it has already started years back. People have lost there jobs. Nowadays there are far amount of people working and I think that machines does it all and the workers just keeps the machines maintained

 

[Fullmoon]

There are some jobs that machines/robots can't over take. I am a carer, and whilst the physical side could possibly be taken over ( although every persons needs are different) the social side couldn't .

 

[Azareal]

There are some jobs that machines/robots can't over take. I am a carer, and whilst the physical side could possibly be taken over ( although every persons needs are different) the social side couldn't .

Well, we'll see what the sentient AIs have to say about that.

 

[Fullmoon]

There are some jobs that machines/robots can't over take. I am a carer, and whilst the physical side could possibly be taken over ( although every persons needs are different) the social side couldn't .

Well, we'll see what the sentient AIs have to say about that.

Still not the same. My man I care for has brain damage. I don't see how an AI could replicate that level of care.

 

[Cosmic]

Yes, but it’s going to be a while.

Humans are smart. We’re capable of adapting to any number of complicated situations. Machines can do more math than us, but we have them beat in versatility. It takes a long time to manually define all of the interactions that are needed to even perform a single job, such as truck driving. To do this for every job takes time, but can be done.

It could be done more quickly if we develop:

1. General purpose AI that can adapt as we do.

2. Systems that are able to very quickly engineer more complicated systems. For example, a machine that is able to design a self driving vehicle for us, so that we don’t have to.

Until either of those are created, we’ll see a few jobs automated at a time. Bank tellers are an early example, though of course there are still humans at banks. Just less of them. Hands-on manufacturing is an example, though there are still manufacturing jobs. Trucking jobs will be next, as self driving vehicles become common. There will still be some truck drivers for a long time, but most of the industry will likely be automated.

This is the pattern. Jobs become more and more automated, and eventually vanish, or are replaced by a very small number of technicians or supervisors. This is good, because it means that humans can do other, more important things. We will see how society keeps up with this though, as many currently do not have the education to perform the remaining jobs. Subsidized education may help, followed by an eventual universal basic income, though the latter should only come after our economy can sustain itself with very little untrained labor.

 

[USHost247]

There will always be a need for Police, and other first responders that machines just can't do.

 

[Azareal]

Humans are smart.

There will always be a need for Police, and other first responders that machines just can't do.

Well, if the machines were smart enough, you could have these spider like death bots with guns and tasers mounted on them. Not any-time soon, but it's cool as all hell.

 

[Bryn]

If robotics do take our jobs, then what purpose do us humans have now?

 

[Azareal]

If robotics do take our jobs, then what purpose do us humans have now?

To amuse our robot overlords.

 

[VirusZero]

There will be many jobs that robots won't be able to do right away... but there won't be many jobs that will ever be 100% secure.

Right now the main jobs that will be on the line are customer service types. These being your front line bank tellers and cashiers. We've already seen machines eat away at these jobs. Look no further than your nearest McDonalds for evidence. At least in the ones where I live they've added in kiosks for people to can place their order. Compounding that is the fact they only have one cashier on service at any time. That used to be 2-3 cashiers on duty.
Now this loss of 1-2 jobs may not seem like much, but scale it up. Say there are 30 McDonalds locations in my province (probably a very lowball amount, but let's go with it) that's 30-60 jobs eliminated right there. Factor in larger provinces with more people and more McDonalds and it's very possible that this cut a thousand jobs.

Self-driving vehicles will also make a massive dent in jobs. Once self driving cars are perfected (and by that I mean at the very least solving winter driving issues) it won't be that much of a jump to move to commercial trucks. That will put a lot of people out of jobs. I mean long haul truckers will face very tough competition from machines that can run all day/night without sleep. Meaning that shipping times would decrease since, as it sits, many provinces and states have laws of how many hours a person can drive before they legally have to pull over and rest.
But even in cities just having taxis that drive themselves or buses that go on their own will take a ton of jobs.

If self driving vehicles can navigate cities then it wouldn't be much more of a stretch for them to navigate warehouses... So they could very likely load and unload trucks with automated fork lifts. Which means even more people would be out of work.

In the medical world people aren't safe either. There is already an AI that can detect melanoma with a higher accuracy rate than human melanoma specialists. This is only the very beginning too. This is just an AI so it can't actually do anything physical. However robots designed for medical purposes, like assisting patients, might not be that far off. And they could be better than humans simply because they'd be stronger, not suffer fatigue, never get snappy with a patient, never neglect them, have advanced onboard scanners/systems to be able to more accurately detect issues, be interconnected to the hospital network to update charts or provide real time feedback.

Any move to automation will never create many jobs. From the McDonalds example... It doesn't take that many people to keep the kiosks running. (If it did, making the move to automation wouldn't make sense. Why pay that many highly trained, and thus costly, techs when they could pay that many people to just fill those cashier roles for much less money? They wouldn't.) Any jobs that are created by automation will be ones that inherently require more specialized knowledge/training. And let's be real here... there are many people who just wouldn't be able to do it. The average person is not overly bright.

I think the larger issue here is that automation is coming. But we're not even close to being ready for it and the effect it will have on society. Companies are already rushing head long into this because they foresee this as an investment in a time when they don't need to pay someone minimum wage to do a job, they can just buy a robot to do it at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Eussbig]

If robots take over all our jobs, there won't be a need for a concept of money anymore. Think about it.

 

[Geoffrey]

There will always be a need for a human aid/oversight even in the most automated types of work. Machines break, customers need help, etc. and automatic processes and technology can't provide that.

Not to mention there's a lot to be said for the customer service an actual person can provide. Automated technology just makes it even more important for you to be excellent at your job and to make yourself invaluable and irreplaceable - by a machine or another human.

 

[Azareal]

customers need help

The machines are the real customers. About half of all my customers or rather requests come from machines, humans are just pests who waste vast amounts of coal and oil and fill the atmosphere with cow farts (they think too highly of themselves to eat insect burgers) 😛 lol

Not to mention there's a lot to be said for the customer service an actual person can provide.

On a more serious note, a lot of customer service isn't particularly good. If you're talking to someone over the phone, then they might have a strong accent or they might not have a clue what you're even going on about or what to do.

AI will make that obsolete, assuming that people aren't scared of machines enslaving us or whatever other nonsense Elon Musk is spouting this week.

Machines break

Machines to repair machines.

Automated technology just makes it even more important for you to be excellent at your job and to make yourself invaluable and irreplaceable - by a machine or another human.

In practice, not really. It will probably lead to people getting payouts from the government and never working, although you could argue that it gives people time to pursue their hobbies and to better the world that way.

 

[Azareal]

A lot of what people do are very specific tasks dictated down on a sheet.
Even doctors and surgeons go through check-lists of what to look for.

For repairing a machine, you'd go through a list of things which could be fried, run diagnostics, and then, you deduce the bit which has messed up. You repair (more likely replace) that and you happily get on your day.

If you have no idea, then they bring in an expensive professional who goes out once every full moon and generally handles more important things to solve the problem.

 

[VirusZero]

Right now machines can't really fix other machines. However let's stay they combine an AI designed to do diagnostics and repairs (which is possible) with a robot that has an arm that can actually make those changes. For example the Honda Asimo robot (or an enhanced version thereof). Suddenly saying we might need a human to repair the machine might not actually be accurate.
Granted there are still issues to be solved to get there... namely building the AI to do that and solving the power problem. (Any robot that is expected to run complicated software like an AI, on top of the motors to get around, is likely going to need a LOT of electricity and battery tech just isn't there yet.) But it's not impossible and let's not kid ourselves to think it'll never happen.

As for customer service, AIs that can handle that are coming. Will they be perfect? No, not at first. They're going to have a ton of bugs and it's going to be frustrating. But given time they'll be a common thing. Companies want them because it means they don't have to pay a human to do it. They'd much rather own a robot (even if the robot costs them two or three times the employee's salary/wages for a year) because the robot never calls in sick, never refuses a shift, never complains, doesn't ask for vacation/time off, doesn't need breaks, doesn't get angry and does exactly what it's supposed to.


As for the effect on humans? Overall I see a net negative. Society is geared around money. And it's not going to just abandon it any time soon. But when robots/AI essentially put large numbers of people out of work they're going to turn to welfare type programs (even if temporarily until they can get a new job). But these programs are simply not equipped well enough to handle such an increase. In many cases already they're stretched thin. This means people won't get help. Those that do get on these programs may find strict timelines for them which they may be unable to meet. (Like you only have a half year on welfare before it expires and you have to find your own job again.)
I fully expect that this will lead to people getting desperate. Desperate people do drastic things. I could easily see crime rising drastically as people turn to anything to make money and provide for themselves and family. Even if it means selling drugs or robbing others.

Even companies, as much as they think they want this, likely won't once it happens. I mean what happens when the population is too poor to buy your product? Decreased income. Low income means either have to cut costs until the income covers costs and they make a profit. Or they have to drop the cost of the product until people can afford it and start buying and hopefully make up the number by volume of product moved rather than moving a smaller number of more expensive items.
Or if the company refuses to adapt then it will cease to exist.

In a worst case scenario people with no money/jobs will shun the monetary markets and turn towards trading.

 

[Azareal]

Any robot that is expected to run complicated software like an AI, on top of the motors to get around, is likely going to need a LOT of electricity and battery tech just isn't there yet.

Your brain runs this really complicated software without a problem!
And with a surprisingly small amount of energy.

You are the ultimate computer.
A lot of really successful AIs have essentially been imitations of the human brain.

On another note, I have a little robot which goes around cleaning the floor, although there have been reports of some security robots tumbling into fountains.
It gets around quite fine and the robot which repairs it is not necessarily the same one which moves to the other one.