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Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

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Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#21

Post by ars »

bluedino wrote: post #14
codegeek wrote: post #6

Another report: As more jobs are getting automated, it opens up "new" job opportunities in new fields that are coming up. So net effect: not much. Point being that for centuries, we have been automating things that were done by humans at some point in time. Not much different even today. Take one example of cellphones. It probably eliminated many "jobs" for people working in landline industries in the last decade or…

Automation eliminates jobs - that's the whole point. One robot replaces 20 workers and you only need 1 person per every 20 robots to manage them. Sure, you've got jobs in robot building and such but when a robot shop with 20 employees turns out 200 robots in one year and displaces 4000 workers...

You need to go to the next level. People automate things not to eliminate jobs (that's not the whole point), but to save money. So now the product is cheaper.

So the buyers of the product have extra money to spend - which opens whole new fields of products and services for them, which will (at first) be run by humans and have jobs.

It's a cycle that repeated many many times in history. It's just happening faster now. So if you want to always be employable (and you are not particularly skilled) be flexible - don't get stuck in a single field, but be willing to constantly learn new ones. (This is hard for some people, but some extra funding for adult vocational school should help.)

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#23

Post by maxerickson »

dferlemann wrote: post #15

Not even an estimated time schedule. Not like it's gonna suddenly drop 47% employment next year. It would be a slow process of replacing laborious jobs to intelligent jobs. Adapt and survive, isn't that how it suppose to be?

We are at least somewhere close to the point where we can choose how we want it to be without paying any mind to how it is supposed to be.

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#24

Post by acgourley »

A thought experiment: Imagine a pre-singularity world with near-intelligent anthropomorphic robots which can do most manual tasks - including resource mining, food production and building more of themselves. Imagine most menial white collar jobs have been replaced by clever software written by people on this site. There are still some jobs for humans to do - in game design, fashion, service, music, etc. But any way you look at it, there are not enough jobs for everyone to do. Lets call this the "high unemployment future."

Currently we exist in a "low unemployment present" but if you believe a "high unemployment future" is possible, you should reasonable believe we're smoothly approaching it. So if you think my thought experiment can come to pass - we need to be very concerned.

If you're going to bring out the tired argument about how the cotton gin didn't cause mass unemployment, instead I would challenge you to paint a picture of a far off future where most jobs haven't evaporated.

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#26

Post by msluyter »

codegeek wrote: post #6

Another report: As more jobs are getting automated, it opens up "new" job opportunities in new fields that are coming up. So net effect: not much. Point being that for centuries, we have been automating things that were done by humans at some point in time. Not much different even today. Take one example of cellphones. It probably eliminated many "jobs" for people working in landline industries in the last decade or…

This has been discussed on HN many many times, and I could probably just dredge up old posts and cut and paste them, but rather that re-iterate those, let me focus on the following: how would one falsify your thesis? What would it take before we could confidently agree that automation was not creating an equivalent number of jobs as it was creating?

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#27

Post by nawitus »

The probability for software engineers is 4.2% in the paper.

All jobs will be automated in 100 years in my opinion (if technological development continues). In fact, work itself will be automated away. (But some will continue to 'work' for other reasons than gatheting resources).

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#28

Post by batbomb »

bluedino wrote: post #14
codegeek wrote: post #6

Another report: As more jobs are getting automated, it opens up "new" job opportunities in new fields that are coming up. So net effect: not much. Point being that for centuries, we have been automating things that were done by humans at some point in time. Not much different even today. Take one example of cellphones. It probably eliminated many "jobs" for people working in landline industries in the last decade or…

Automation eliminates jobs - that's the whole point. One robot replaces 20 workers and you only need 1 person per every 20 robots to manage them. Sure, you've got jobs in robot building and such but when a robot shop with 20 employees turns out 200 robots in one year and displaces 4000 workers...

The problem with this logic is that it assumes a zero-sum game, and a constant demand.

Example: If we have 10 guys making hydrogen cells, and all the sudden we can replace them with one robot and one guy, and that takes an unviable industry to a viable one, well then they are going to need a lot more robots and guys, a lot more than the 10 they previously had.

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#29

Post by Crito »

acgourley wrote: post #24

A thought experiment: Imagine a pre-singularity world with near-intelligent anthropomorphic robots which can do most manual tasks - including resource mining, food production and building more of themselves. Imagine most menial white collar jobs have been replaced by clever software written by people on this site. There are still some jobs for humans to do - in game design, fashion, service, music, etc. But any way y…

Exactly. Consider that automation would be pointless if replacing N foo-craftsmen with foo-machines necessitated the hiring of N equally expensive foo-machine repairmen and assemblers.

Automation reduces jobs, wages, or both.

Nevertheless, we should embrace it. Increasingly strong social safely nets can be used to take up the slack.

Re: Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

#30

Post by Patrick_Devine »

With strong AI, wouldn't 100% of U.S. jobs be at risk? On the bright side, as software engineers, I would think our jobs will be the last to go.

My guess is as a species we'll just find something else to do, just like we always do. Who knows, maybe inefficiency will become fashionable at some point.

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