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posted by martyb on Monday September 09 2019, @05:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the Who-trains-the-trainers?-Engineers? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The skills gap is widening between people and AI.

Artificial Intelligence is apparently ready to get to work. Over the next three years, as many as 120 million workers from the world's 12 largest economies may need to be retrained because of advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, according to a study released Friday by IBM's Institute for Business Value. However, less than half of CEOs surveyed by IBM said they had the resources needed to close the skills gap brought on by these new technologies.

"Organizations are facing mounting concerns over the widening skills gap and tightened labor markets with the potential to impact their futures as well as worldwide economies," said Amy Wright, a managing partner for IBM Talent & Transformation, in a release. "Yet while executives recognize severity of the problem, half of those surveyed admit that they do not have any skills development strategies in place to address their largest gaps."

[...] IBM says companies should be able to close the skills gap needed for the "era of AI," but that this won't necessarily be easy. The company said global research shows the time it takes to close a skills gap through employee training has grown by more than 10 times in the last four years. That's due in part to new skills requirements rapidly emerging, while other skills become obsolete.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday September 09 2019, @06:30PM (17 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 09 2019, @06:30PM (#891789) Journal

    Oh, and an important thought is that in a more equitable society, a job being automated away would be an unambiguously good thing. Producing more value with less work is good. It's just the capture of that benefit going 100% to owners that's bad and distresses society.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @06:34PM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @06:34PM (#891794)

    Entry level jobs are supposed to be for high school kids to prove they can handle responsibility, not to offer a livable wage.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by DannyB on Monday September 09 2019, @06:48PM (4 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 09 2019, @06:48PM (#891807) Journal

      That was then, this is now.

      Entry level jobs are supposed to be for twenty thirty somethings in mom's basement who must buy video games or snack foods for video games.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday September 09 2019, @07:02PM (3 children)

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 09 2019, @07:02PM (#891818) Journal

        I mean, they're in their parents' basement because they're on fucking $8 an hour while rent is 1.2k a month.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @07:19PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @07:19PM (#891828)

          You dont have to leave the basement to make $8/hr.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday September 09 2019, @07:36PM (1 child)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 09 2019, @07:36PM (#891836) Journal

          First, I agree that the minimum wage should be increased. Businesses complain, but in fact, it turns out that everyone has more money to spend and it is good for business.

          Second, I am just reflecting my stereotype that there is a subset of people who seem to feel entitled to be supported by society forever. They need to work. (I could quote the bible: If a man will not work, he should not eat.) I also recognize that some people legitimately cannot work.

          Something has clearly gone off the rails in our society when so few hoard the vast majority of the planet's resources (aka wealth) while everyone else struggles for a bit of the remaining resources. I think that is a big part of the real problem more than the minimum wage. There may be enough to go around, but too much of it is hoarded and wastefully used.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @07:42PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @07:42PM (#891840)

            There is no mystery about that something... The federal reserve creates money out of thin air and loans it to their friends, who loan it to their friends, etc. It cant be any more obvious.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @08:30PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @08:30PM (#891851)

      Entry level jobs are supposed to be for high school kids to prove they can handle responsibility, not to offer a livable wage.

      Bull. For that to work there should have been less entry level positions than actual jobs in every industry since rejecting an applicant should be the exception. But right from the Ford factory days, you had 100 entry level jobs for every management job. There was never any hope for promotion. Never a chance for a livable wage when working normal hours. White voters were told it's for minorities and white trash so they supported it. Black people were told they'll be able to afford their kids a higher education if they save it properly.

      Black people got screwed over. White people got screwed over. The poor got poorer. The middle class got poor. The rich got richer. News at 11.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @08:44PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @08:44PM (#891857)

        Entry level is stuff like janitor or stocking shelves or mowing lawns, not working around heavy machinery.

        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday September 09 2019, @10:02PM (2 children)

          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday September 09 2019, @10:02PM (#891895) Journal

          Entry level is stuff which does not require great amounts of skill or thinking to achieve basic tasks which do not require an expert to supervise. "Heavy machinery" has nothing to do with it, because many machines can be operated by rote and without skill for basic preset tasks. "Entry level" implies that there are higher levels to which one might aspire, although the term is also frequently used to describe jobs for which the lowest tier of pay a company offers. Menial jobs which get one's foot in the door and are an entre to a company are not necessarily 'entry level.'

          --
          This sig for rent.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @10:15PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @10:15PM (#891903)

            You are not going to give someone you don't know with no work references access to a million dollar piece of heavy machinery. You are going to make sure they are at least minimally reliable by giving them simpler tasks to complete first where they can't cause much damage if they mess up.

            • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 10 2019, @03:58AM

              by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday September 10 2019, @03:58AM (#892057)

              Heavy machinery doesn't have to cost a million dollars. You can get an entry level CNC Mill for around $60k. You program it, set it up, and hire someone off the street to swap parts and hit the green button.

              Or you can have a robot swap parts for about another $60k.

              --
              The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 10 2019, @05:17AM

      by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday September 10 2019, @05:17AM (#892081)

      And to train people in the skill of greeting people with a standardized phrase [youtube.com] while maximizing attitude and minimizing bloodshed.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 10 2019, @04:57AM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 10 2019, @04:57AM (#892073) Journal

    Oh, and an important thought is that in a more equitable society, a job being automated away would be an unambiguously good thing. Producing more value with less work is good. It's just the capture of that benefit going 100% to owners that's bad and distresses society.

    Such keen insight is why I hope you never near a position of responsibility. Let us keep in mind here that the automation is happening simply because some idiots would have decided to make that work too expensive to pay humans to perform. It's not being automated away because it's producing more value with less work, but because someone deliberately broke society.

    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:28PM (3 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:28PM (#892216) Journal

      Oh sure, that interpretation is completely at odds with how automation investment actually works, but it does coincide with your dumbass ideology, so I guess I see the value.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 10 2019, @07:50PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 10 2019, @07:50PM (#892326) Journal

        Oh sure, that interpretation is completely at odds with how automation investment actually works

        Like you would know? Maybe you're right in the absence of regulation, such as high minimum wages, that would encourage employers to invest in automation.

        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday September 10 2019, @08:39PM (1 child)

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 10 2019, @08:39PM (#892362) Journal

          Like I said, the core incentives don't change, aimless deregulation is a stupid ideology for extremely stupid people who meticulously misunderstand real-money economics, as actually executed in the real world, and certainly not any sort of realistic understanding of systemic effects beyond the one-variable analysis they tend to fixate on. I don't know how to describe the naivety of tying the extremely inelastic costs of capital expense software projects to the quite elastic curves of day to day operational staff, but it comes from putting an ideological commitment to dumb ideas first, and the supposed analytical underpinnings of that very same ideology as a distant second.

          I've yet to see a libertarian economic analysis that looked at how businesses actually operate day to day, or try to estimate what actions would actually produce a profit, the actual mechanics of technological development, or really anything besides just insisting on that they're not idiots while saying the phrase "economics 101".

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 11 2019, @03:45AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 11 2019, @03:45AM (#892513) Journal

            Like I said, the core incentives don't change, aimless deregulation is a stupid ideology for extremely stupid people who meticulously misunderstand real-money economics, as actually executed in the real world, and certainly not any sort of realistic understanding of systemic effects beyond the one-variable analysis they tend to fixate on. I don't know how to describe the naivety of tying the extremely inelastic costs of capital expense software projects to the quite elastic curves of day to day operational staff, but it comes from putting an ideological commitment to dumb ideas first, and the supposed analytical underpinnings of that very same ideology as a distant second.

            Nothing aimless here. Minimum wage is a very definite target as are other regulation that has similar effect - damages the economy without actually doing anything useful.

            And let us keep in mind the half century of offshoring that solidly demonstrates that however much you claim that labor costs (keeping in mind that outsourced labor is not part of your tally so you're not fully counting labor costs), it's enough that they'll go out of their way to reduce it.

            I've yet to see a libertarian economic analysis that looked at how businesses actually operate day to day, or try to estimate what actions would actually produce a profit, the actual mechanics of technological development, or really anything besides just insisting on that they're not idiots while saying the phrase "economics 101".

            Why would an expressly libertarian economic analysis be needed when a normal economic analysis suffices? You admit that labor costs are significant business expenses. And we have a long history of companies dropping expensive labor when they can by shifting to either automation or moving to a cheaper part of the world. So now, we consider a regulation which has the primary effect of making labor more expensive? Law of supply and demand. Increase the cost and there is less demand for the good.

            Here's the interesting things I find about minimum wage advocacy. First, it ignores that there's a de facto market-based minimum wage. Instead, somehow companies will pay nothing for labor and labor will somehow accept that. Second, they ignore cost of living except as an excuse for the minimum wage. Much of this regulation increases the cost of living. That includes minimum wage laws themselves. Never do I hear them advocate policies for reducing cost of living. Third, minimum wage laws are one-size-fits-all, another indication that advocates completely ignore cost of living. Fourth, these laws force people to move to higher cost of living areas. A classic example in the US is the exodus of people from Puerto Rico. There's much more than just overly high minimum wage law (for example, cost of living is also affected by overly expensive infrastructure and intracoastal cartels created by regulation) but it's a big part of the problem both in creating a serious unemployment problem that people solve by moving to the US mainland and by pushing away labor intensive businesses.

            The libertarian solution would be to reduce the regulatory cost of hiring people, both by eliminating the minimum wage outright and cutting the burdens imposed by poorly thought-out regulation that doesn't consider cost/benefit of the regulation, eliminate the many, many cartel and oligopoly enforcing regulations out there in any country, and cut the revenue streaming through the welfare state.