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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

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If driverless trucking takes off, why would the gas station need to be full service (staffed with humans)? Compared to building an autonomous truck, autonomous refueling seems like the easy part.

By this logic should we have autonomous refueling already? After factoring in the cost of the robotics I suspect paying humans minimum wage is quite a bit cheaper. Especially given the diverse outdoor environments such a system would need to be maintained in

There is no value in automated refueling - almost everywhere in the world drivers re-fuel their cars themselves, so there is no money to be saved by making this process automated. The only exception to this are some american states where you can't do it yourself by law.

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

#82
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 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.

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

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If driverless trucking takes off, why would the gas station need to be full service (staffed with humans)? Compared to building an autonomous truck, autonomous refueling seems like the easy part.

Think of it this way: Right now, to move one trucks' worth of cargo for one hour requires one man hour. i.e.: 1 man-hour per cargo-hour. If you have a single human that full-services 200 self-driving trucks in one day, you have: 1 man-hour per 200 cargo-hours. Sure, autonomous refueling is easier than self-driving, but self-driving trucks also makes the human relatively way cheaper to employ.

But you might have more trucks, not necessarily less humans.

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

#84
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic should we have autonomous refueling already? After factoring in the cost of the robotics I suspect paying humans minimum wage is quite a bit cheaper. Especially given the diverse outdoor environments such a system would need to be maintained in

By this logic should we have autonomous refueling already? It's been done a few times.[1][2] The systems are rather slow and clunky, but work. Dealing with all the variation between cars runs up the cost. Tesla has a charging robot.[3] This is much easier, since Tesla controls both sides of the interface. The car actively cooperates, opening the charging port door. Tesla also interlocks the car so that you can't driv…

They did deploy one station, between SF and LA. They say it has barely got any traffic, so they aren't planning to build any more. Others have pointed out that building the station was a requirement to get some CA tax benefit.

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

#85
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 for one replacement is a flaw, but also it doesn't take into account that efficiency often times leads to more work being done. Like accountants. Excel and other software resolved a ton of their work. You didn't see a collapse in the number accountants. They just crunch more numbers, do more analysis. uber made taxi's more efficient and I now ride in one 10X as often. >We're seeing this in the more advanced law f…

I just realised that I plagiarised most of your points in another comment before reading yours.

The lawyer industry as it is, is I think a form of archaism. In most transactions there is zero justification to custom make a contract. Most sales of houses and businesses have exactly the same terms and the only reason you need lawyers to read and customize contracts is because other lawyers customized contracts previously and someone has to do the due dilligence of figuring out what they did. I am sure you could design a robust legal system with simple laws, where citizen do not need an expert to understand their rights and obligations, and where everyone would use standardised contracts for the quasi totality of transactions.

In fact it is a bit shocking that a common citizen cannot possibly understand the hundreds of thousands of pages of law and jurisprudence they he is required to comply with and needs to pay (dearly) an expert to do that for him.

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

#86
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 work in a bank and we regularly pay for legal opinions or advice on whether something we are thinking to do is legal or compliant with the laws and regulations. Are you referring to something else when you say compliance work?

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

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic should we have autonomous refueling already? After factoring in the cost of the robotics I suspect paying humans minimum wage is quite a bit cheaper. Especially given the diverse outdoor environments such a system would need to be maintained in

There is no value in automated refueling - almost everywhere in the world drivers re-fuel their cars themselves, so there is no money to be saved by making this process automated. The only exception to this are some american states where you can't do it yourself by law.

Why on earth is this a law?

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

#88
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.

My thoughts:

Fleets of self-driving trucks will be on the roads worldwide by 2020.

Those same trucks will have a ‘delivery driver’ inside the cabin for at least another 10 years.

By 2030 all sales of new trucks will be self-driving From 2030 onwards a robot such as the latest generation Atlas will be in the cabin to handle deliveries.

By 2050 very few, if any, human couriers will be used, instead people will have new jobs coordinating the self-driving trucks, delivery robots and facilitation depots.

DHL recently hosted journalists, customers, and experts in the field of robotics at “Robotics Day” in their DHL Innovation Center in Troisdorf, Germany. The company says “Robots will be part of the future of logistics, and we’re excited to be on the ground floor of what that future cooperation will be like.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeL-YtaUkWc&feature=youtu.be

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

#89

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…

If driverless trucking takes off, why would the gas station need to be full service (staffed with humans)? Compared to building an autonomous truck, autonomous refueling seems like the easy part.

By 2050 gas stations will disappear to be replaced by electric charging stations which will be automated.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard question is not whether certain jobs will get automated out of existence--they will. The hard question is why that automation will not result in the creation of new industries, which themselves will create new jobs. This has happened throughout human history. To say that won't happen anymore is a high bar. That's why the pace of change does matter. If jobs are destroyed much faster than they are created, the…

There's only so many times you can retrain a human. Plus, the "re-trainability" rate decreases dramatically with age. In a decade or two there will be a heck of a lot of middle-age people hopelessly outpaced by the rate of change. 10 years after that, even young people won't be able to keep up.

While there are age-related declines in certain cognitive abilities, in the absence of conditions like neuro-degenerative disease, it doesn't mean that older individuals are incapable of learning new tasks and skills.

Differences among age groups are greatest comparing people in their 20's vs. 60's (or beyond). Even then, differences are modest.

See this article for more explanation: Clark R, Freedberg M, Hazeltine E, Voss MW. "Are There Age-Related Differences in the Ability to Learn Configural Responses?" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26317773

There's also evidence of alterations in "learning style" with age but that's yet another consideration.

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