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Automation could wipe out 375-800 million jobs globally in the next 13 years, including 16-54 million in the U.S. But don't worry, there's a new job waiting for you:
The McKinsey Global Institute cautions that as many as 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030 due to automation.
[...] "The model where people go to school for the first 20 years of life and work for the next 40 or 50 years is broken," Susan Lund, a partner for the McKinsey Global Institute and co-author of the report, told CNN Tech. "We're going to have to think about learning and training throughout the course of your career."
[...] "The dire predictions that robots are taking our jobs are overblown," Lund said. "Yes, work will be automated, [but] there will be enough jobs for everyone in most areas." The authors don't expect automation will displace jobs involving managing people, social interactions or applying expertise. Gardeners, plumbers, child and elder-care workers are among those facing less risk from automation.
Also at Bloomberg.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday November 30 2017, @07:24PM (9 children)
Then Mr. Lund and the study authors aren't applying enough imagination, and they're relying on past results and how automation has worked before to describe how the future will be. That usually doesn't work well as a predictor. The best analogy I read was look at how the Star Trek series over the past fifty years has portrayed how computers will be in the future. They get some things semi-accurate (Tablets instead of PADDs.) But for the most part they're actually wrong. I wish I had the citation where I first read that, but I don't.
My prediction, FWIW, is that automation will continue apace to require a smaller workforce overall and eventually there won't be enough innovation or development to support the starving masses. Then we'll get civil unrest and wars like the world has never known before. And I hope I'm wrong.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 30 2017, @09:26PM (4 children)
The best analogy I read was look at how the Star Trek series over the past fifty years has portrayed how computers will be in the future. They get some things semi-accurate (Tablets instead of PADDs.) But for the most part they're actually wrong. I wish I had the citation where I first read that, but I don't.
I disagree; they didn't do too badly IMO. In TOS, they had "tapes" that looked just like cartridges, and the computers had voice interfaces mainly. This was a pretty common view of computing in the future at the time, and the cartridges thing really wasn't too far off from how microcomputers in the 80s were used. What they really didn't seem to understand was networking, even though they depicted the ship as having a central computer with remote terminals located throughout, which is just how mainframes of the 60s worked. Why they thought that stuff needed to be stored on "tapes" plugged into the terminals, instead of just stored in the "library computer" (a term they used now and then in the show), I'm not really sure. Honestly, if you overlook the cartridges bit, and then give them some leeway because of the low budget and poor visual effects achievable at the time (there's no way they could have made futuristic-looking computer displays on a TV show in 1966; they struggled with it even in high-budget 80s movies), they didn't do too badly. Also notice that they had tablets in TOS: Kirk has to sign a report about fuel consumption every now and then. But nothing else is done with them unfortunately.
In TNG, the PADDs were definitely a prediction of today's tablets, but even here they screwed up: they didn't seem to get that the tablets could be remote wireless terminals to the central computer, so there's one scene where a whole bunch of them are piled up on Picard's desk, waiting for him to get to them, which really makes no sense. Here again, the computer frequently is accessed with voice commands, which really isn't implausible; we just haven't gotten that good at it yet. We have to take a lot of time writing Python programs or SQL queries to do things like what Riker can do by just asking a simple question in English. And then this show adds in some pretty spiffy-looking computer displays (best when Data is driving). And lots of people use non-voice terminals to do their work.
One thing that shows, however, that ST:TNG is in a different universe from ours, is the way those displays worked. Notice that the displays update almost instantly, and when Data is operating them, they can go through hundreds of pages of data at a ridiculous rate. Obviously, that's impossible in our universe unless we adopt computer technology from some aliens or something, because our computers are all getting slower, thanks to shitty UIs and shitty programming (and the dumb idea that all applications need to run through a web browser--see Electron). Even when processing is constantly getting better, the user interface part is constantly getting slower and less usable and functional, not to mention much uglier. UIs hit a peak in the mid-200s, and have been going downhill since 2010.
Overall, I'd say given these are TV shows set hundreds of years in the future where FTL travel is possible, the computer tech portrayed really isn't *that* wrong. Like all sci-fi I know of, they failed to predict the Internet, however on a exploratory starship this isn't really that important because of communications problems (we're not going to be playing online games between Earth and Mars, for instance, until we invent FTL data communication due to massive latency), the way it would be in sci-fi set in the future on Earth. They also came up with "tricorders", as well as "communicators", which together kinda predict our modern smartphones: there's scenes showing them using the tricorders to look up data for instance, the way we'd use a phone to look something up on Wikipedia.
One thing about ST I'll never understand, however, is why the bridge consoles are constantly exploding and hurting or even killing crewmembers during battles. There's no reason to route that much power through a bridge station. Also, the handheld phaser design in TNG didn't make much sense either.
I'd also like to point out that tablet computers were also predicted in 1969 in "2001: A Space Odyssey". The guys on the Discovery ship were using one to read the news.
As for your prediction, at some point we're not going to have enough good-paying work for a large chunk of the population to do, and we're going to have to resort to UBI. If we don't, civil unrest and wars are going to be the result.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 30 2017, @11:00PM (1 child)
We're going to end up with neural links. The basics of that tech already works in labs and you can DIY a crude hack to both control and sense things you normally can't. No one will need paper, tablets, or computers (I'm sure many people will want to keep them around for a few generations). Everything will be able to be performed virtually. What happens after that we don't know. There's too many possible branches. Borg? Couch potatoes? Overlord, memory controlling government? Species ending war? Tech de-evolution? Genetic engineering advanced enough to engineer anything you want thus no need for electrical machines? Unending virtual life? I think Peter F. Hamilton's books show a far more likely future for us than Star Trek.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 01 2017, @04:24PM
Yep, there's a lot of places where ST missed the boat, which are outside of the computing mostly: genetic engieneering is one. They touched on it a few times, once in a 2nd season TNG episode where a research colony engineered some kids to have super immune systems which ended up making them deadly to other humans, and Dr. Pulaski has to save the day and herself. Then in DS9, somehow genetic engineering has been illegal for a long time in the Federation (which contradicts that TNG episode), but Dr. Bashir turns out to be a product of it. But really, with advanced enough technology, GE is pretty impossible to stop. How are you going to tell that someone had the Sickle Cell Anemia defect fixed in their genes? And why would you not want them to do this anyway? Plus, now we're figuring out how to modify genes in already-living creatures with CRISPR; back in the 90s, we though it'd only be possible at the embryo stage, so theoretically, if you could jump through time a couple centuries, you could have your genes altered to be taller, smarter, a different skin color, have some superhuman abilities, etc.
With neural links, that sounds like The Matrix, and in a world with that technology, it becomes questionable why anyone would want to live outside the simulation. We could engineer ourselves into a future where we just don't want to live real life any more. Why bother having kids, for instance, if you can live in a simulation and have simulated kids that are just the way you want them, instead of having real kids which have a good chance of turning out to be little assholes?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday December 01 2017, @04:28PM (1 child)
You're right that they got things right. But a lot of what they got right reflected the ways computers of the day were used. TOS: They had cartridges, but they were of cassette tape size. Very long lasting technology, but existed in the day. TNG: They had "isolinear chips", mimicing USB sticks of the day. Sure I still use USB sticks today, but it's more common to have cloud resources. In Voyager they were all but gone. Voyager used "gel pack" biopower cells - gel cell batteries were common then with just a little treknobabble that they were bio based. In TOS you had to be at the console where the computer terminal was (and it was a terminal link to the big ship's mainframe.) (You also had the revolution of M-5's Engrams not completely dissimilar from notions of Neural Nets - they get some things right.) But the time of TNG you get Picard's ready room 'laptop' style display (common then) and PADDs (just around the corner). We also got voice control (a future harbinger of Siri), where in TOS it was all button-pressing.
Mobile, you're right they had communicators and tricorders. But communicators in TOS and even TNG were refined versions of walkie-talkies; how many people use their smartphones in speakerphone mode when unnecessary? (Sure, some, but they use them more like phones than two-way radio.) Tricorders were general-purpose gadgets to some degree, but the TOS tricorder clearly used a tiny little CRT - because nobody predicted color LCD display. The TNG tricorder buttons were very clearly for predefined functions (BIO - GEO - MET), not the touchscreen customize-for-button. In fact, both had buttons - nobody predicted touchscreen on that scale. So they had the things, just used like you'd expect in the days of production.
The book or article I read made a compelling case that whatever the technology was, it was expressed in terms familiar to the day. (Because you have the paradox of presenting the future, yet the viewer/reader must be able to relate to it all somehow.) So you get the future you mention, but used in terms of how we utilize tech today. Also because if you know what the future will be like..... then you make it and get rich. :)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 01 2017, @04:34PM
We also got voice control (a future harbinger of Siri), where in TOS it was all button-pressing.
TOS had some voice control and feedback too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 01 2017, @02:22AM (2 children)
Past results which have worked over centuries in the face of a huge amount of technology improvement and expansion of global trade, and are still working as of the present day. In other words, if they're wrong, shouldn't we start to see that at some point? Another thing that hasn't changed are all the Chicken Littles forecasting doom and gloom. Maybe some century down the road they'll be right instead of glaringly wrong?
My view is that economics still works even in the situations that you are worried about. And we still have three economics effects ignored here. First, comparative advantage. Even in the situation where automation can do everything better than you, it doesn't mean that it is more economical to do so. The opportunity cost of diverting such resources can outweigh the cost of using existing human labor for the task.
Second is Jevons paradox. When one increases the productivity of human labor via automation and robotics, one will make it more valuable and hence, more in demand. Third, it's not that hard to create new markets and economies when the existing ones don't serve a group very well. Black markets are a classic example of this in action.
The thing is we're better off [soylentnews.org] than we've ever been before. Technology advances, including automation, are a large part of why that happened.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 01 2017, @03:04PM (1 child)
That only holds as long as human agency is involved. Once AI comes into the picture, humanity falls off the economic cliff. That's if the AI decides it wants to continue to do things that serve humans. If it decides humans are competition for limited resources, then we're really in the soup.
So, yes, up until the last human is removed from the chain of production, the handful of guys with 7 PhD's and neural implants and VIs to expand their productivity will have limitless wealth and power, but how long do you really think that would be tolerated by the other 7 billion humans on the planet who are starving and desperate? Bullets are not infinite and gun barrels overheat and cartridges jam and guidance systems fail. The ultra-geniuses might easily command their kill-bots to obliterate the masses, but after they break down after killing the 1 billionth person there are a further 6 billion to tear them limb-from-limb with their bare hands, if need be.
Maybe the best path for humanity is not that one. Maybe de-humanizing for the purposes of control is not a sustainable progression. Maybe it would be better for everybody to comport ourselves in a way as a global society that brings out the best in everyone. That might be a lofty goal and in all likelihood impossible to fully realize, but isn't it a better star to navigate by than the one we have been?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 01 2017, @04:02PM
Human agency never went away.
I guess you missed my bit about humans setting up their alternate economies when that happens.
But there are already vastly more bullets in the world than would be needed to kill all seven billion people. Such a conflict will depend on a lot of things, but in theory, killbots would lose in the short term and win in the long term due to greater human numbers at first, and a faster production and training cycle for killbots later.
No, because people who don't play by those rules can win big. It's a lot easy to discourage killbot army creation, if there are huge negative consequences to doing so, like your factory becomes a smoking hole in the ground. But that means not being nice on occasion.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday December 01 2017, @02:44AM
There will be no revolution. First, any number of starving people are not capable of attacking anything that is protected even with today's weapons, let alone Robocops and Terminators. Second, the starving people can be geographically isolated from objects of their anger. Third, it might be more convenient for a society that maintains millions of robots to just feed the unwanted masses (see basic income.)
But in any case only in Middle ages one baron could be richer than another because he had more peasants. Today head count means liabilities. Only smart heads are assets. Without some transition from the current economic model we will end up with a handful of rich men living in palaces on tropical islands and with a continent full of "everyone else," not customers and not makers, living on scraps that robots once a week drop from helicopters. The difficulty in this transition lies in the fact that the power belongs to industrial giants, and not to the government. Why would the owners of robot factories give up their positions? What can be offered to them? The throne of God-Emperor? Might be not enough, as they will be already at that level.
If anyone thinks that it's impossible to create such a ghetto - it's easy. Robots will build cities on a designated territory, where no natural resources exist, and offer them for free, along with the basic income. All jobless will fly there, propelled by a mighty kick of suddenly elevated rent. And then, one day, they will get an offer of the true VR...