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Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

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Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#81

Post by ktRolster »

iamcurious wrote: post #57
ktRolster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a better article that discusses that: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/08/is-your-job-routin... If your work is just following instructions, then it's probably routine. As for me, I'd like to see most middle management go away, since I largely see it as a waste (basically, if people know how to manage themselves, you can get rid of most middle-managers).

You still need management as a way of reducing communication costs. Without any management you need (n!) communication channels in the worst case. With proper management you can achieve (n*C ~).

You don't need to have a person working full-time as a communicator. Your team can have a 'designated communicator,' and that role can even be swapped around so everyone learns to do it.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#82

Post by ktRolster »

kristianc wrote: post #10
ktRolster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a better article that discusses that: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/08/is-your-job-routin... If your work is just following instructions, then it's probably routine. As for me, I'd like to see most middle management go away, since I largely see it as a waste (basically, if people know how to manage themselves, you can get rid of most middle-managers).

It's not a knowledge problem it's a process problem. You can get rid of most middle managers but only once you have the conditions in the business where people can be both autonomous and aligned to the business goals. Most middle managers end up achieving neither, but a layer of management is the default solution that companies most end up with.

That is an interesting thought. I would suggest that one of the goals of the company should be to teach people to be autonomous and aligned to the business goals.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#83

Post by paulryanrogers »

mrrrgn wrote: post #11
atemerev wrote: post #2

What's wrong with that? This is called "progress".

Progress implies moving toward a goal. What goal are we moving toward? Our society and economy aren't optimized for scenarios involving large scale unemployment. What use is automation if it only leads to mass human suffering?

Ecological sustainability would be nice. Though it seems our current means of automating are more often at the expense of our environment.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#84

Post by Futurebot »

Johnnybe wrote: post #43
ktRolster wrote: post #4

I really like Mike Rowe's viewpoint on unemployment: http://profoundlydisconnected.com/

It's disconnected alright. There's only 3 companies advertising for jobs on his careers page. And one of them is a franchising company (Mr. Sparky). Trades are very competitive. Just look up the number of electricians in your area. It's a race to the bottom in the trades.

Do you have more sources on this? I've been looking for good data on the competitiveness of traditional blue-collar "trade" jobs/industry since it started becoming the go-to panacea to all our job woes a few years ago. It seems like plumbing, electrician work, HVAC, etc. would be pretty easily saturated areas; how many plumbing jobs can be sustained per neighborhood, for example?

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#85

Post by MikeTV »

debacle wrote: post #49

Isn't that the purposeful outcome of technology? "I could replace everything you do with a script." I know for a fact that work I have done has contributed to the demise of many positions. Could you imagine the industry for "Internet Cataloging" if we didn't have search engines? Email if we didn't have Gmail? Technology is a job killer. That idea is something that's been a part of society and literature for hundreds…

As an automation software developer in a manufacturing business, the software I've written has obsoleted a lot of positions but not the people in those positions. There's always something new for even unskilled, aged labor to do -- often, tasks that didn't exist before resources were freed up by the same automation.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#86

Post by ghurtado »

savanaly wrote: post #46
awinter-py wrote: post #42

Scary parallel here with the recent jeff dean talk about NN. He claims he won't let his team touch any 'research task' that takes more than a week, and prefers to stick to experiments that take under a day to set up and run -- that there's so much low-hanging fruit that every ML project should be simple. Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. I hope I'm misquoting hi…

>Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. Isn't that more properly regarded as exciting than scary? The long term benefits to automation have rarely failed to outweigh the temporary costs. I would personally be very happy if my own current job- software developer- were somehow automated out of existence. Not only would it allow me to put my money where my mouth is rega…

> I would personally be very happy if my own current job- software developer- were somehow automated out of existence.

Considering that my own personal theory is that software developer (also my profession) is the last job that will ever be automated (there will have to be one last person that writes software to run "the robots" before "the robots" write all their software), I can't say that I share your excitement at this milestone.

But then again, maybe it's simply evolution and nothing to fear, since we are as temporary in the universe as the last species we evolved from.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#87

Post by brightball »

bdavisx wrote: post #60
tomjen3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the population having access to most of the worlds knowledge in the palm of their hand is a gigantic boon to society. What we should accept is that the time is approaching where a) it is possible for skill and lucky people to make many millions of times more money than those who are neither and that b) the cost communication has decreased so much that in many cases it no longer makes sense to employ people, i…

I think we need to be careful about what "tolerable lives" means too. I've seen "guaranteed income" proposals talking about something in the $25,000 USD range or similar. That's basically poverty level - and while that's better than nothing, it probably won't work as more and more jobs go away. Imagine a world (or the US) where 75% of the people are at the poverty level and 25% are "rich". How long do you think that'…

$25,000 is plenty to live on for single people in certain parts of the country. When I was in college I could live large on about half that with no problem at all.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#88

Post by Futurebot »

atemerev wrote: post #35
mrrrgn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress implies moving toward a goal. What goal are we moving toward? Our society and economy aren't optimized for scenarios involving large scale unemployment. What use is automation if it only leads to mass human suffering?

Luddites were saying the same around 200 years ago, but it turned out better than expected. Lots of new jobs were created, replacing manual labor.

Just because it was true then, does not mean it will be true now. The Luddite Fallacy Fallacy; Gwern does a good job explaining it and supplying copious links on the subject: https://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#neo-luddism

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#89

Post by btbuildem »

Assisting or caring for others is not a low-skill job! It may not require a doctorate in theoretical physics, but it requires a lot of emotional intelligence, stamina and ability to be present with other people. It's far from routine!

This immediate nitpick aside - I think it's great that routine task jobs are going away. The bulk of those are mind-numbing, dead-end jobs - do we really need to keep subjecting people to 40h/wk routine boredom?

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#90

Post by nostrademons »

FilterSweep wrote: post #47
savanaly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. Isn't that more properly regarded as exciting than scary? The long term benefits to automation have rarely failed to outweigh the temporary costs. I would personally be very happy if my own current job- software developer- were somehow automated out of existence. Not only would it allow me to put my money where my mouth is rega…

> but it would mean huge gains for the human race. This entirely depends on the model the human race is running off of. With the current state of mass-centralization in tech (see, again, the big 3), you will never get to experience such gains. In fact, you would quickly grow dependent on someone else to feed and shelter you, considering you can no longer provide a benefit to society that puts food on the table. In fa…

The assumption that the "current model" (I assume you mean capitalism) makes is that people, when placed in a position where they no longer provide a benefit to society and yet must in order to put food on the table, will find a way to provide a benefit to society.

In my experience, this is true over longer (1-2 year) timescales, even if it's not obvious how at the outset. Most people, when made redundant, find new ways to make themselves relevant. The process isn't exactly pleasant, but the outcome often results in a lot more lucrative and fulfilling career than they had before.

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