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Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

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Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#91
post #9

Actual OECD study: [1] The study says that, for the US, 9% of people are at "high risk" of automated out of a job. (That probably means "replaceable right now".) But 38% of people are potentially replaceable. There's an assumption in the OECD report that the entire job of a human must be replaced. But that's not how automation works. We're seeing this in the more advanced law firms. What used to take a senior attorne…

> one attorney, one paralegal, and a lot of software and databases

Now imagine what would happen if common law in the US was abanonded in favor of civil law, so that the data was a book of laws, rather than a history of cases...

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#92
post #9

Actual OECD study: [1] The study says that, for the US, 9% of people are at "high risk" of automated out of a job. (That probably means "replaceable right now".) But 38% of people are potentially replaceable. There's an assumption in the OECD report that the entire job of a human must be replaced. But that's not how automation works. We're seeing this in the more advanced law firms. What used to take a senior attorne…

>Ask any newly graduated lawyer trying to get a job.

Is this actually a global thing? I mean does this apply to smaller cities as well?

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The factor is availability- you need three of these workers for a around the clock shift. AI does not sleep.

Ok, so you have 3 employees working 24/7 for an average of a $20k salary (33% more than minimum wage). That's $60k/year or $120k over 24 months (based on Bartweiss' ROI estimation). Do you think it's possible to deliver an automated gas pump that services 4,800 trucks per day (~1 truck every 3 minutes) for $120k? I don't.

Except the employees are going to need breaks in between working and I'm going to just guess that manning a gas station in the middle of desert alone makes you insane pretty fast. So at least double that salary estimate if you truly want to keep things rolling with 1 truck every 3 minutes.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#94
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One for one replacement is a truly strange standard to hold to. After all, even trucking automation will not be a 100% loss - if nothing else, we'll see a rise in full-service highway gas stations to fuel driverless trucks. On the other hand, even 10% replacement of an industry (9 workers doing what 10 workers do now) is a big deal, and there are a lot of careers (legal, HR, document handling) that should expect to s…

I'd say rather than refueling, repairing. Right now there is a human in the truck who will do basic repairs, change a wheel, etc. If you have driverless trucks, they will need people available all over the country to service them on a short notice. Although admittedly these jobs could also be automated in the long term.

There was a story about a Tesla's radar being blocked by a moth, that smashed to its front. A fully autonomous vehicle would have had to stop and wait for someone to come by and clean the radar. Or there need to be lots of additional minor repair gadgets added to the car to clean sensors in case of dirt.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#95

Honestly, I read these studies and think nobody writing them has any idea of what these jobs actually entail. Driving a truck is not the be all and end all of being a truck driver. The driver covers a great many tasks, from admin and security, to safety inspections, to dealing with law enforcement and boarder guards. I see no talk of how the robot is to replace those functions. I do see sweeping statements about rebu…

You could have truck drivers just at the start and end points of a route. Trucking companies can have representatives at the border, who then guide it through customs. No need to sit in the vehicle for hours.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#96

The actual study is a bit more detailed and it suggests some interesting things. One is the evolution of work and jobs over time. As a pretty relevant example, the migration of shopping to "online" vs in store means two things; First you don't need the goods in a metro area, and second you need to get them to the customers. If you replace all current "shopping" traffic with "delivery" traffic it really cuts into the…

> we imagine some "delivery only" roads

This is possible but unlikely. There have been numerous plans in the past to build such large infrastructure. Like large pneumatic tubes to every house for deliveries. It usually turned out to be too expensive to build.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#97
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how it goes down is important though. if automation follows after labor begins to move to something else then that's one thing, but the reverse, automation putting people out of work, mean there might not be anything for them to realistically move to.

A booming business in automation and robot repair.

Good luck learning to program or repair self-driving trucks when you've been a truck driver for your whole career.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#98
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about neota logic ? they seem to build pretty capable software for legal. Also, as for your claim that "works fills the available time", what about competition, new models of billing(fixed-fee), etc ?

I'm not sure what Neota Logic does. Looks like it's a best practices guide prepared by Litter Mendelson turned into software. This could be a good example of advancements creating more work. My firm does a ton of employment law advising. My coworker in that department is always bitching about HR workers in her clients organization making dumb legal choices on their own. This software is designed for that sort of thin…

>> I'm not sure what Neota Logic does. Looks like it's a best practices guide prepared by Litter Mendelson turned into software.

As i understand , it lets lawyers decode their logic/thinking into the software, so you get more than a best-practice guide(assuming best practice guides are like what we have in software) - because to build a full best practice guide that includes all the corner cases and the fine details, etc is just not practical(too much to read, you'll need an expert anyway).

But once you can gather information from the client(in a branching logic kind of way), you can create detailed advice that's very focused to the client's exact problem, and that usually offer much higher value - if you do it well.

>> (much of the law has no clear answer)

So many decisions in law are probability based ? the lawyer knows that doing X has 90% chance of being OK and 10% of being not OK (roughly) depending on corner cases or how laws will be interpreted in the future, etc - and builds a plan upon that, taking risks into account ?

Because maybe neota supports probabilistic logic, not sure. But for example i know some medical expert system software do us that.

>> Clothing got cheaper, and now we own a lot more clothes.

We probably consume more of most things, and yet employment in some sectors decreased.

>> I can't even tell if the quality of work actually pays real world dividends.

So selling is key. And probably risk reduction is key.Right ?

Computers have a pretty good track record doing risky stuff in a safer way and handling complexity, because humans make mistakes, and are limited with regards to complexity. It could be a big selling point once legal software matures.

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#99
Nitpick :

>OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries.

And yet they always are.

Numbers wise, even if Frey and Osborne's supposedly apocalyptic numbers are correct that's 47% job destruction over 20+ years, or roughly 2.35% per annum. Since we already destroy between 10% and 15% [0] of jobs annually (depending on where you are and who's doing the measuring) this really doesn't represent that big a shift. Given some of this is likely due to automation anyway, the lower figures given in this paper would barely register.

[0] http://econweb.umd.edu/~haltiwan/c12451.pdf

Re: Destruction of large numbers of jobs by robots unlikely, says new OECD Study

#100
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the bigger issues now is you're competing with the entire world. When global shipping can get any product almost anywhere in a few days, economy of scale wins.

With oil becoming more expensive, for how long do you think global shipping will stay cheap? "Economy of scale" is many times an euphemism for "burn fossil fuels with subsidized costs".

We can go back to using sails. Cheaper but slower, so it'll work for a portion of shipping
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