General News Will Robots Put Us Out of Work? Or Employ more of Us?

Technology is changing, which means business is changing.

For the past 20-30 years, the business, economic, employment, and educational sectors have been trying their best to "beat this" into peoples' heads, that jobs and the workforce are changing drastically. But nobody listens.

That, plus the every growing population of humans, makes it very difficult to live.....and will keep getting worse and worse.

Yes, robots will put people out of work, simply because THOSE people refuse to redevelop their skills, or develop new skills to fit the new world of employment and positions needed today and in the future.

Todays skills are like new computers.......today they are the latest thing, tomorrow they are outdated and obsolete....literally.



You have to learn skills that will make you money tomorrow, not today, and definitely not yesterday.


If you want a job that will make you money in the future, and not be made redundant in the future, then you need to do your research and find out what lines of work will stay in demand during your lifetime.....or at least for the next 30+ years.



There are many aspects to each of these different categories, so it would only be in one's best interest to research every line of work that has to do with these categories of employment.

This is a current list of employment categories that (as of 2015) have a long future, and not in the way of becoming extinct--

Scientists (this includes math, chemical engineers, medial, physics, astronomy, synthetic developers, etc...)

Robotics (well, like duh!)

Mechanics (physical mechanics, as in auto repair, machine repair, and robotic repair)

Mechanical Engineers (those developing said machines, artificial limbs, eco machines, etc...)

Medial (any kind of Doctor, nurse, or care tech, even those who make and produce medical items such as wheelchairs, syringes, medical pumps, etc...)

Pharmaceuticals (drugs of all types of all natures)

Plastics (developers, designers, engineers)

Eco Developers (anyone developing anything relating to use of the four elements as a driving force for operating machinery....such as windmills or "wind turbines" that use the wind to create electricity)

Alternative Farmers (those who are able to find more eco-friendly, ecological, safer, and faster ways to produce food....one example is hydroponic gardening)



I'm sure there are more categories, but these are the absolutes. They have only have the potential to grow, not shrink or become extinct.




If you aren't interested in any of that..............
there's always this.......

 

That is an argument I've heard many a time but I don't think it is valid when you look into it.

If you look at the job groups you have listed, eventually humans will not even be needed in them.

Lets say you replace an office or warehouse of 100 people with robots or computers. You might need a small handful of skilled employees (lets say 5) to maintain and monitor those robots. But what happens when we get to the point when the robots can monitor and repair themselves? Then you are left with maybe 1 human staff member just to purely supervise things.

Now imagine this on a bigger scale, happening across factories, warehouses, offices, hospitals etc across the country. If the vast majority of human workers in all these environments are being put out of work, what on earth will they do for employment? Add into the mix rising population and it is a recipe for disaster.

If huge swathes of the workforce across a country are being made unemployed, training in technology is probably not going to be a solution as there will be unlikely to be enough open vacancies to be filled with these huge numbers of highly trained staff.

And this isn't me engaging in a overly pessimistic "what if" worst case scenario model of thinking - we know from very recent past experience that this does happen. With the closure of mines and steel factories in the 80s, and the reduction of staff in factories and power stations we have already seen large scale unemployment (we are still dealing with the consequences today!) - the only saving grace has been that we are thankfully quite antiquated still in a lot of professions (particularly white collar professions) so that has soaked up some of the fallout.

 

The only good robot is a dead robot.

 

It's not "robots" or "machines" : It's humans who create robots and sell them.

And you could also mention the networks : Nowadays you send emails, and this is cutting jobs on the post, to name an example.

There is no way on earth to stop this, so you better catch up while you still got time. At least the very basics. Younger or better skilled people usually share this knowledge for free.

By the way, this is nothin new, it has happened since the industrial revolution, so I can't see what this big fuss is all about.
I'm not against it, I work on IT and I'd rather have a robot taking care of me when i'm old than a cruel, deranged human who hates his job on a residence anyday.

 

Why, why do we worry about Robots. They aren't going to put humans out of work, humans will always have jobs specifically for humans. Acting is one, a lot of entertainment is a job for humans, robots can do the factory work, the most risky jobs and most menial of tasks. That gives more time for humans to work on making others laugh and feel emotion as sad scenes happen in any form of entertainment.

 

LOL..........whoa there big fella!

Are you talking just "in the future" or the future you will be participating in?

What you are suggesting is probably at least 100 years or more into the future. IF it happens at all. And robots pretty much completely taking over the entire workforce? Unless someone designs a completely no-fault artificial intelligence, this will never happen. And the probability of anyone designing a prototype completely no-fault A.I. is at least 200 years down the road!

What I am talking about is what is plausible in YOUR future, not the ENTIRE future of the human race.

What I have listed, are those industries where humans MUST have the controlling factor, because automated machines do not have the capacity for "if's", "and's", or "but's" when approaching a problem, issue, or crossroads in judgement. The "human" factor is still the greatest asset to these industries.

A lot of factories are already automated with robotics. But these robots are only physical labor. They do not comprehend, they do not reason, they do not take all factors into consideration......they just put stuff together, pack boxes, or fabricate items. Sentient technology, the type you are suggesting, is WAY, WAY, WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY into the future. Passed any times you will ever see.

Yes, you may see some awesome tech in your time on this planet, but it will be nothing like what you are thinking about right now.

 

Here is an interesting video about the topic:
[YOUTUBE]7Pq-S557XQU[/YOUTUBE]

 

100-200 years is nothing on even the merely human historical scale.

There's no reason why we won't eventually be able to build machines that can replace humans at every conceivable activity (and probably do it better than us). At that point, perhaps it's time to question why humans should be expected to work in the first place. Perhaps better to take a lesson from our hunter-gatherer ancestors who spent thousands of years just living off the production of the biosphere. In this case, let the machines do the work and humans can live off the results while doing whatever they please.

The idea that the only way to survive and have 'worth' in society is to semi-enslave yourself to another human being or group of human beings is a relatively recent one when measured against the whole of humanity's existence. While it's wonderfully convenient for some and in their interest to promote as being 'the only possible and right way for things to be', there is no evidence that this is some fundamental law of physics or the like. It is rather a societal construct and therefore merely a made up thing.

Todd

 

I hate the idea of robots replacing humans. Yes it creates more engineering and IT jobs but not everyone wants to work in IT or engineering.

The company I work for invested in 8 robots and there is not a day that goes by without problems. IMO some jobs can never be replaced by robots and get the same results

 

If we do that the robots will probably be smart enough to take over the world and they won't have any emotions. I'm completely against it.

 

I think you are being quite naive there.

Technology is progressing at an extraordinary rate (largely due to technology itself opening avenues for progression). Humans have been around for about 200,000 years...yet it was only 120 years ago when the car was invented, we have only had commerical use of electricity for 130 years.

We now have microsd cards capable of holding 200GB, at launch just 11 years ago MicroSDs contained a max of 128MB (so that is 1562.5x the earlier capacity).

50 years ago, if you told anyone about the internet, smart phones, self-driving cars and planes, MRI scanners etc they simply would not have imagined that in the realm of possibility.

If this is the state we in at 2015, lord knows how things will look well within my lifetime (in 20, 30, 50 years time) - plus our lifespans are also increasing so you have to add that into the equation. With technology and medicine it is quite conceivable that I could live to 100+, not that I'd be working then, but I would be a witness to things!

In 1900 male life expectancy was at 47...it is now almost doubled to 79.5. Think about that.

In the career fields I mentioned there are no needs for "ifs and buts". The vast amount of office jobs simply involve logic and following processes - computers could handle these perfectly, the only reason we don't have this in place already is the cost of the tech (but back on the memory example, that is quickly changing - see here).

Likewise we are not far off, if not already there when it comes to machines capable of detecting faults in other machines and repairing them.

You are wrong about warehouse robots being simply labor based - these machines are smart. They can assess what they need to collect, know exactly where the items are, even plan the most efficient way to get said items (by grouping them with other orders with items in the same locations). This is happening across the world right now - not in some far-fetched sci-fi film.

Humans have only evolved through having challenges- be it hunting and surviving, or working.

We simply cannot "put our feet up" without some degree of devolution - we have already seen this in some areas. Our ancestors could survive perfectly well living long-term in caves with nothing more than furs for warmth, our modern bodies simply would not cope with this.

Without some form of challenge or stress we become weaker and less intelligent as a species. Now of course we could "invent" new ways of challenging ourself (which would probably be largely based around hedonism, games and leisure) - but it would be questionable as to whether this would be enough, or be too artificial to truly stimulate us, or whether we would simply become bored with the monotony.

We would essentially be living life as though we were "retired" from the day we are born to the day we die. Having seen how ill adjusted rich children who are raised in this fashion today often become (often resorting to drugs and addiction to explore something new), I think this could well be a case of "too much of the good stuff".

 

Humans haven't evolved in any significant way since we became humans (meaning from Cro-Magnon onward). Evolution has no purpose or direction or intelligence, nor does it strive for anything in any sense. It's just a random walk and what results in survival (at least long enough to pass on the genes) 'works' and what doesn't doesn't.

Humans certainly haven't evolved as a result of our modern/historical ideas of working.

Sorry, but you're totally wrong here. Any one of us in reasonable good health is perfectly capable of surviving in the same conditions as those ancient ancestors. We might not enjoy it overmuch, but we could do it. There are people now who do this kind of thing, either for the challenge of it or as part of wilderness survival training in the military or the like. There are millions of people around the planet who live in conditions vastly less comfy than those of us on this list enjoy and they survive just fine.

Evolution has nothing to do with it, just a matter of what you're used to.

Not having to labor every day just to survive does not equal no challenges in life. As far as those challenges being 'artificial' or not, I highly doubt you or most of the other people on this list experience much of anything other than artificial challenges that society has created in your life already. By show of hands how many people on this list spend any significant amount of time hunting down and killing your own food or even just going out into the wild to find and gather it? Anybody?

By the standards of our ancestors we already live a hugely non-challenging existence full of made up challenges. This is not to say our challenges aren't real, but they are (for the most part) very different from those people tens of thousands of years ago had to deal with. Likely they would find our present way of living as hard to imagine as most now might find the idea of living in a world in which machines can do everything.

As far as becoming 'bored with the monotony', I see two answers to that:

1) Can you honestly argue that the majority of people who have to work every day to live now are filled with joy and energy due to the vast variety and excitement of their jobs? If not, then the alternative is no different (And no worse) than now and so your argument annihilates itself.

2) This argument sounds a lot like the sort of 'sour grapes' argument from the Kipling fable -the moral being 'I didn't want that thing anyway because it must be bad'. Or maybe it might be really good, but since we don't/can't have it just now it feels better to assume that it must be bad or worse than what we have now. Much like the argument that being immortal must result in crushing boredom and based on no more evidence than that one.

There are plenty of people who either don't have to work yet are very socially active, spend their time on good causes, and keep very busy with hobbies. There are people who have to work who put great effort and resources into their hobbies or doing other things that they consider worthwhile.

There are any number of things to do in this world (and with the kind of tech we are discussing here we might have access to many others beyond this one if we wished). Given the opportunity, I think most folks would find all kinds of things to do with their time and would be very unlikely to get bored.

The argument that they wouldn't be doing something 'worthwhile' or 'meaningful' is a red herring. Nothing any of us do has any meaning or value in any objective sense anyway. The universe doesn't care. So the only meaning that is attached to our actions and our labor is what we choose to give it. So a society in which machines can do everything would likely develop different standards of what was meaningful and then go forward based on those. They might not match ours, but ours have no objective value or meaning anyway so are irrelevant.

Such a society might also get over the big lie that just because machines can do something better this means that no one should be allowed to do it at all. If a human enjoys doing something and there is no pressing reason that the machines are needed to do it faster or better, than why not just let those people who take pleasure in doing it go ahead with it?

Todd

 

Why assume that people need to be employed in the first place?

Yes, modern economic systems break down in that case, but is there some reason to think that such systems are anything more than temporary cultural constructs as much as anything else people have created over the course of our history?

Todd

 

As machine learning gets better the more jobs that robots can do will increase. Ending with them becoming machine learning scientists. We have to restructure our economy to allow for unemployment. To accept that machines will do everything for us.

 

It's a possibility, but I think it would be centuries from now. I can't even get my iPhone to work consistently! I can't imagine a bunch of robots! Ahh!

I do think that jobs are changing, however. The technology field is growing and things are very different. A friend of mine works in stocks/securities/money management. He does a lot with technology. He recently lost his job because they outsourced to Ireland. It's been difficult to find a job for him and I think it has to do with technology changing the landscape. Things are very different now.

I'm not sure how we can change it. I do think that new jobs will come up, but I am not sure how.

 

Well I think the vision of the future you have described (where nobody would have to work) could only possibly work under a pure communist model.

I don't think we have ever really seen that operate successfully. That isn't to say capitalism isn't without its flaws, but it does seem to keep things relatively stable.

One question - if robots do all the jobs and produce all goods - where will the profits from said efficiency go? Will they be shared equally amongst society (at the risk of devaluing the very products being produced) or end up being filtered to a corporate elite? It seems the only viable solution in that situation would be to abolish money and hand full control over to the government to "purchase and provide" what they see fit. That sounds pretty dystopian to me.

 

Communism and capitalism both are based on a number of assumptions that need not apply (and in fact may be totally irrelevant) in a scenario in which machines of human and greater than human capacities are readily available. Entirely new models would likely be necessary, as has been pointed out. Be care of falling into the 'if it's different from what I know, then it must be something I think I know and don't like.' trap. In principle, this is no different from people who consider gay marriage and immediately jump to marrying children or bestiality or the like. One does not logically follow the other.

While that is one possibility, there are many others.

For example, why not a hyper-libertarian model in which ever citizen is initially given sufficient robotic support and access to resources to be fully self-supporting, including being able to make more robots as required? With the energy and resources of just our one solar system it is readily possible to support hundreds of billions of people at a level that would make Bill Gates (or even the entire combined economies of every industrialized nation on Earth) look like utter poverty. Some sort of government like mechanisms for dispute resolution and joint projects and the like might be needed, but perhaps individual communities and locally elected councils could handle this. Private police forces and court systems supported by subscribers? Something else?

As another, if the machines can truly do everything better than we can, why not hand over the reigns of government to them? If it is clearly demonstrated that they actually do a better job and people like the results better - why not? Or at least put them in charge of preventing corruption and those other aspects of government we don't like?

One might also wonder what a government would actually need citizens or taxpayers for it it has its own supplies of robots able to do whatever is desired/required.

These are just some of the potentials. Likely there would be many others. The trick would be working to produce an option we all liked. But then that's always the case.

Todd

 

The Robot Rebellion is always hiring.