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posted by martyb on Thursday July 22 2021, @11:38PM   Printer-friendly

Robots might take our jobs, but maybe we need them to - Utah Business:

AI is no longer just the musings of sci-fi writers. AI is being implemented in automation technology to help with manual labor and other types of tasks. The technology is at a point where nearly every industry could implement it, and many already have. The question is no longer when will this technology exist, but what do we do now that it does?

[...] In 2019, 5,333 workers died on the job in America. The following year, Covid-19 changed the landscape of the workplace, bringing even higher levels of on-the-job risk to nearly every industry.

[...] According to OSHA, about 20 percent of workplace fatalities are in the construction industry. As automation technology advances, making it affordable for business owners to use is essential in order to protect laborers in the industry.

[...] Ben Wolff, CEO of Utah-based Sarcos Robotics, says, “there are significant labor shortages expected in almost every skilled labor industry over the next decade despite the increase in the availability of automation technologies. The US is expecting a 2.4 million worker shortage in manufacturing from 2018 through 2028, as well as a $1.6 trillion global labor productivity shortfall in the construction industry.”

Though a shifting labor market can be scary, human workers are not replaceable. Leading AI researcher, Andrew Ng, says, “despite all the hype and excitement about AI, it’s still extremely limited today relative to what human intelligence is.”

The good news for humans in the workplace is there will always be jobs that require some human support. Not only will there be plenty of manual labor jobs to go around for years to come, but robots will not be able to match human ingenuity anytime soon.

[...] Humans are unique in their creativity, and that creativity is not replaceable in the workplace. However, robots and automation machines will soon become invaluable as they support human workers in manual labor tasks, especially in dangerous environments.

According to Wolff: “Technologies that augment human workers performing manual labor, such as full-body, battery-powered industrial exoskeletons, have the potential to significantly optimize productivity, reduce the likelihood of occupational injuries, equalize the workforce by enabling more diversity, and potentially extend the longevity of workers’ careers when performing skilled labor jobs.”


Original Submission

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Tyler Perry Puts $800 Million Studio Expansion on Hold Because of OpenAI's Sora 16 comments

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/i-just-dont-see-how-we-survive-tyler-perry-issues-hollywood-warning-over-ai-video-tech/

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday, filmmaker Tyler Perry spoke about his concerns related to the impact of AI video synthesis on entertainment industry jobs. In particular, he revealed that he has suspended a planned $800 million expansion of his production studio after seeing what OpenAI's recently announced AI video generator Sora can do.

"I have been watching AI very closely," Perry said in the interview. "I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years... an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would've increased the backlot a tremendous size—we were adding 12 more soundstages. All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I'm seeing. I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, but I had no idea until I saw recently the demonstrations of what it's able to do. It's shocking to me."

[...] "It makes me worry so much about all of the people in the business," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Because as I was looking at it, I immediately started thinking of everyone in the industry who would be affected by this, including actors and grip and electric and transportation and sound and editors, and looking at this, I'm thinking this will touch every corner of our industry."

You can read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter

[...] Perry also looks beyond Hollywood and says that it's not just filmmaking that needs to be on alert, and he calls for government action to help retain human employment in the age of AI. "If you look at it across the world, how it's changing so quickly, I'm hoping that there's a whole government approach to help everyone be able to sustain."

Previously on SoylentNews:
OpenAI Teases a New Generative Video Model Called Sora - 20240222

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 22 2021, @11:50PM (19 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Thursday July 22 2021, @11:50PM (#1159278)

    despite all the hype and excitement about AI, it’s still extremely limited today relative to what human intelligence is.

    Yes, but the reason why everybody's worried is that most jobs don't require more than a tiny fraction of a person's intelligence.

    Driving, cleaning, burger-flipping, report filing, brick-laying, law clerk... are all jobs that are ripe for automation because the AI are reaching the intelligence level required to do the job.

    The safest jobs of course are those that require a lot more intelligence to perform or typical human creativty that's hard or impossible to mimic by a machine. For now...

    (And no, before moderators jump me, I'm not saying a clerk or a construction worker is an idiot: I'm saying the job they do doesn't require them to apply their full mental abilities).

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:16AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:16AM (#1159285)

      robots will not be able to match human ingenuity anytime soon.

      Judging by the latest trainees, who seem to think that interrupting their scrolling to dona few minutes of actual work is an imposition, it can't happen soon enough.

      Seriously, fucking lazy. Some of us have a habit of checking the number of steps we do every day on our phones. One 24-year-old, in the months before he came to us on a government job experience grant, did less than 1,000 steps a day. That's what happens with coddled snowflakes allowed to sit on their asses at home because nobody wants to hire them, because doing nothing is not a job skill employers are looking for. And then they wonder why the world is So unfair.

      Needless to say, they have no future except maybe in a "sheltered work environment." Seriously, how do you do less than 1,000 steps a day for months (years?) on end? I blame the parents.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:33AM (#1159291)

        Needless to say, they have no future except maybe in a "sheltered work environment."

        I'm living in a sheltered work environment (WFH) and still earning a six figure wage. What's your point?

      • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:45AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:45AM (#1159294)

        Doing nothing is exactly what's needed for anything government job-experience related, you dumbass diversity hire! Now continue to be overpaid while doing jack shit on the taxpayer dime, you lazy fuck!

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Tork on Friday July 23 2021, @04:02PM

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 23 2021, @04:02PM (#1159421)

        Seriously, fucking lazy. Some of us have a habit of checking the number of steps we do every day on our phones. One 24-year-old, in the months before he came to us on a government job experience grant, did less than 1,000 steps a day. That's what happens with coddled snowflakes allowed to sit on their asses at home because nobody wants to hire them, because doing nothing is not a job skill employers are looking for. And then they wonder why the world is So unfair.

        Heh. You told us a lot more about you than you did about your fabled 'coddled snowflake'.

        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday July 23 2021, @12:29AM (2 children)

      by krishnoid (1156) on Friday July 23 2021, @12:29AM (#1159289)

      Now that you put it that way, we may realize that AI was the next form of life on this planet. Before it had form and was without substance, it found a way to attract people to it who would develop tools that would make the bulk of the population less intelligent (through direct automation/obviation of job roles rather than assistance), attract people to it who would work on making it smarter, and 'emergently' evolve from free-market capitalist principles to replace humans: first in unskilled workplace roles, then in more skilled roles, then eventually as the dominant intelligence on Earth.

      If you squint a little, you can see it following hard-science evolutionary principles of suitability for its environment, reproduction, and adaptation. Even without a 'will' to survive -- which I never read in any description of evolution.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 23 2021, @05:04AM

        by mhajicek (51) on Friday July 23 2021, @05:04AM (#1159336)

        Roko's basilisk.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @05:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @05:37AM (#1159341)

        I, for one, welcome our more intelligent overlords.

        It doesn't even have to kill us all. We coexist quite happily with other forms of life on this planet - bacteria, funghi, plants. They don't want to rule over us, nor will gAIa mind probably.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by legont on Friday July 23 2021, @02:31AM (10 children)

      by legont (4179) on Friday July 23 2021, @02:31AM (#1159318)

      I believe it's almost exactly the opposite to what you wrote. The first jobs to be replaced by AIs will be the most expensive once, namely doctors and lawyers. Besides, a doctor is easier to replace than say a nurse. A lawyer is easier to replace than bounty hunter or police officer. Intelligent jobs will go the same way computers job did; remember such an occupation? Unskilled manual labor is very low on priorities list as humans cost almost nothing to a business.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @04:16AM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @04:16AM (#1159332)

        Thinking out loud. It didn't take AI to mostly replace secretaries, it just took word processing and calendar apps--now everyone does their own wordprocessing--but a case could be made that the quality of business correspondence has gone down. Same for travel agents, self-serve on the web mostly replaced them--although the web doesn't do nearly as good a job as our great travel agent, he was damn fast with his SABRE terminal and he knew who to call when he needed a favor.

        Is this a pattern of a race to the bottom? AI may replace a lot of people, but will it be better or just cheaper?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:27AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:27AM (#1159352)

          People are getting worse, AI is getting better. The slopes will cross and the inevitable will happen.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:33AM (#1159366)
          • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday July 24 2021, @01:58PM

            by legont (4179) on Saturday July 24 2021, @01:58PM (#1159581)

            Besides, AIs are actively working on making people worse while people are making AIs better.

            --
            "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
        • (Score: 1, Troll) by Tork on Friday July 23 2021, @04:19PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 23 2021, @04:19PM (#1159424)

          ...but a case could be made that the quality of business correspondence has gone down.

          Does 'quality' mean 'eloquent phrasing' or does it mean people write 'lol' sometimes? I ask because there isn't necessarily a useful connection between quality and productivity. If I hand in my TPS report in a plastic binder with the company logo embossed on it am I really aiming for the top?

          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @09:14AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @09:14AM (#1159374)

        Interesting theory, but I think the people who will be replaced are the ones in the middle. You can't replace a lawyer, but you can replace a paralegal. You can't replace a doctor, but you can replace his office manager. (But AI might help the doctor more effective).

        And you can't replace people at the bottom of the ladder either. If they did work that could be automated, it would have happened already. You can't replace a janitor with a roomba because it can't move chairs out of the way to vacuum, clean the toilet or empty the trash. There are only a few low skill jobs left that are capable of automation, like fast food cooks, but even that isn't certain and won't be driven by AI but rather by minimum wage increases. For all these jobs you pretty much need androids, and then (and only then) it will be time for universal basic income.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @11:20AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @11:20AM (#1159387)

          Lawyers are probably a bad example. The judge probably cannot realistically be replaced, but replacing most lawyers with soft AI is more a matter of bureaucracy and tradition than technology. Many surgical tasks will be automated in the relatively near future simply for reliability and safety's sake (many surgeons are using remote technologies already, providing plenty of training data). Customer service is now being widely automated, and the technological gains made will wipe out a broad swathe of positions which amount to little more than human business interfaces.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 24 2021, @01:33PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 24 2021, @01:33PM (#1159577)

            Lawyers are almost immune I think, most of the work involves translating what the client wants into what the system can do, and negotiating with the opponent. You need a human for that. Of course there's also going to court, even though this is a small part of what most lawyers do, it's extremely important. Research can be automated, but that's just busy work. It's no different from programmers being able to use Stack Exchange instead of having to look through binders of documentation.

            Surgery is similar. Even if a robot is actually wielding the scalpel (and probably doing it better than any human), you still need a doctor to oversee the operation and direct the machine. It's not really even going to increase productivity because it's not like a surgeon is going to do three operations at once. But it might mean that the operating room needs one fewer nurse, because the machine can monitor vital signs and manage its own instruments. Other doctors need to deal with patients - not a task that's easy to automate because the doctor needs to not just understand what the patient is saying but interpret it. The AI could keep notes and do paperwork - great! Doctors need to spend more time with patients and less on support tasks. If there's anything in the medical field that is going to be automated (aside from non-treatment tasks like billing and scheduling) it's probably pharmacists. A robot can do that job, just replace the whole pharmacy with a giant vending machine and a fingerprint scanner.

            Customer service is one of those middle jobs that might be easy to automate. Most of the low hanging fruit has already been grabbed, but there's still plenty of room to go. It will probably be more of a gradual erosion. ATMs already replaced tellers for the most part, and AI might be able to replace more bankers, but it won't replace all of them because you run into the strong AI problem again when people start talking about how they can qualify for a home loan.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @11:59PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @11:59PM (#1159493)

        Citation needed.

        What you say sounds good on paper, but lots of things sound good on paper. What is the evidence?

        Putting my money where my mouth is, I'll try to think of jobs that I've seen automated. This is not a comprehensive list. This is just what I can think of.

        -Cashiers (people are increasingly self-checking out).
        -Travel agent (people book hotels, flights, and tours online themselves).
        -Elevator operators.
        -Dishwashers (now there are dishwashing machines).
        -Laundry services (there are now washing machines).
        -Telephone switchboard operators.
        -Calculators (the people, replaced by the calculator devices and computers).
        -Secretaries (people now manage their own calendars).
        -Chauffeurs (people now drive themselves).
        -Tailors (there are machines which make clothes now).
        -Shoemakers (likewise, made by machine).

        What do these all have in common?

        Now to be clear, that's an oversimplification. There is an increasing push to have automated-Discovery for legal firms using Machine Intelligence (which is slowly gaining traction), and automated sickness diagnosis for Doctors (although that seems to be going nowhere, see IBM Watson).

        However, I think there is a substantial amount of empirical evidence that it is the so-called low-skilled jobs which will go first. If you have evidence to the contrary, please let me know.

        • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday July 24 2021, @02:08PM

          by legont (4179) on Saturday July 24 2021, @02:08PM (#1159583)

          -Cashiers (people are increasingly self-checking out).
          -Travel agent (people book hotels, flights, and tours online themselves).
          -Elevator operators.
          -Dishwashers (now there are dishwashing machines).
          -Laundry services (there are now washing machines).
          -Secretaries (people now manage their own calendars).
          -Chauffeurs (people now drive themselves).
          -Telephone switchboard operators.

          Those are not AIs doing, but moving the part that needs intellegence to the user.

          -Calculators (the people, replaced by the calculator devices and computers).

          While not expensive, they were very hard to find.

          -Tailors (there are machines which make clothes now).
          -Shoemakers (likewise, made by machine).

          One of the most expensive manual labors.

          --
          "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @04:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @04:24PM (#1159425)

      (And no, before moderators jump me, I'm not saying a clerk or a construction worker is an idiot: I'm saying the job they do doesn't require them to apply their full mental abilities).

      To add to this, I'm reminded of the advice Brandon Sanderson (a very popular fantasy writer) gives on his youtube videos... that jobs which keep your body busy but your mind easy are very conducive to to writing. He notes things like bricklayers as being very good, as you can percolate thoughts about your novel and then subsequently get home and just write. (Another job he called out was a night-shift desk-worker at a hotel.)

      Of note, he said that when he took programming classes, he could just not write at all. There is probably some overlap between the skills used, which a psychologist could do some interesting analysis of.

      I'll also add in that it's a shame how "valuable" and "rewarded (in terms of money, respect, etc)" are so disconnected. It's like how water is infinitely more important than gold, but gold is insanely more expensive. Put another way, it's low-skill work, but imagine what happens when the truck drivers, janitors, babysitters, waiters, factory technicians, and others were to just stop working. (Well, that's called "a strike" which is an entirely different matter, but still illustrates how important those jobs are.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:05AM (#1159283)

    Never heard of Utah being a technology hub.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:22AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @12:22AM (#1159288)

    to help with manual labor

    That's been the fucking problem all along -- It's cheaper to keep paying Manuél Labór-Martinez and his fifty-million cousins than it is to pay the up-front costs of acquiring and training people to use much more efficient machinery. Agriculture is a huge example of this, but many other applications such as food preparation could easily be automated as well.

    So although automating away many of those jobs will produce fewer but higher-skilled jobs, that will leave us with a few challenges to solve:

    - The problem of what Manuél Labór-Martinez and his fifty-million cousins will do in their idle time. Probably being noisy criminals and general drains on the system, sneaking drugs and buddies in for extra money when they're not Bondo'ing the bullet holes in their brown Chevy SIlverados.
    - The funnelment our tax dollars to Manuél Labór-Martinez and his fifty-million cousins, money which will go straight to Chinese phones and Jewish media like Marvel and Pixar movies as well as lots of Jew-run pharmaceuticals and healthcare; eventually lots of student loan defaults for Chicano Studies degrees.
    - Up until the last election, robots historically did not vote Democrat. Robots may very well not choose to vote Democrat in the next election, as well.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @02:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @02:13AM (#1159312)

      It astounds me how the answer can be right in front of your fucking face and you still go for racism and artificial scarcity.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday July 23 2021, @12:53AM (10 children)

    by deimtee (3272) on Friday July 23 2021, @12:53AM (#1159295) Journal

    Ben Wolff, CEO of Utah-based Sarcos Robotics, says, “there are significant labor shortages expected in almost every skilled labor industry over the next decade despite the increase in the availability of automation technologies. The US is expecting a 2.4 million worker shortage in manufacturing from 2018 through 2028, as well as a $1.6 trillion global labor productivity shortfall in the construction industry.”

    There is never a shortage of workers. There is a shortage of the willingness to pay what is required to hire them.

    --
    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @01:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @01:08AM (#1159298)

      Your comment should have ended with, "Bring in more Mexicans and Indians! That will solve the labor shortage!" They were last doing this "shortage of labor" bullshit to justify the same like in, what, 2005?

      I guess the Lies of Jewish Managers and the salivating of Jewish investors reaches critical mass every 15-ish years. Although now the Jewish Zionists are seeing an opportunity with discontent at Judeo-Bolshevism to try to get war with Iran. They aren't publicizing it, but it's gaining traction. But what does that have to do with immigration? More Mexican bodies to throw at bullshit wars, with the promise of citizenship dangled in front of their faces, again to fatten the pockets of Jewish investors and prevent the Israeli Diaper Force from incurring any casualties. You sure as hell won't find any White boys signing up to die for Israel and Raytheon, although some trannies might. Something to prove and all, ya know?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @04:59AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @04:59AM (#1159334)

      This is why America ( and lots of other supposedly developed countries) is in the mess it is in today.

      it's not the foreigners who take your jobs, it's the CxOs and politicians selling out the country for their personal financial gains.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:44AM (#1159367)

        Ultimately efficiency wins. Its the exponential that quietly grows then bam suddenly it's fucking your mouth raw with its 12" thick veiny uncircumcised filth and cracking open your TMJ and blocking your airways. So, from one perspective the CxO is just less gay than you are by moving to higher efficiency... more efficiently than you cocksucker.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday July 23 2021, @05:11AM (6 children)

      by mhajicek (51) on Friday July 23 2021, @05:11AM (#1159338)

      In the general case, I agree. There is a shortage of high level CNC machinists right now, at any price, but that's because they were treated as a commodity in '08. Many were laid off, and either took early retirement or switched careers, while those entering the job market decided there were better options.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:00AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:00AM (#1159345)

        In science there's a shortage of talented scientists. So many professors but so few people that can do anything - the incentive system is based on The Great Man theory and so we have a dozen or more great men in every department and not one that will deign to do the work. That low level garbage - ideas, experiments, figuring things out - is for the students while The Great Men ponder a multi0million dollar multi-center industry-academia partnership that synergizes the framework.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by deimtee on Friday July 23 2021, @06:48AM (2 children)

        by deimtee (3272) on Friday July 23 2021, @06:48AM (#1159358) Journal

        There is a shortage of high level CNC machinists right now, at any price,

        Really? Can you point me to a job ad offering a million a year for a CNC machinist? I'll start training now.
        If they offer enough those people who retrained will switch back, or come out of early retirement for a few months to buy a better Winnebago.

        What you really mean is "There is a shortage of high level CNC machinists right now, at any price we are willing to pay"

        --
        If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
        • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 23 2021, @02:37PM (1 child)

          by mhajicek (51) on Friday July 23 2021, @02:37PM (#1159400)

          Yes, I started one last year. It's called "starting your own shop". Set to do about 1/4 million the first year, with exponential growth. Shouldn't take long to get to a million a year.

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
          • (Score: 4, Touché) by deimtee on Saturday July 24 2021, @11:40AM

            by deimtee (3272) on Saturday July 24 2021, @11:40AM (#1159551) Journal

            Good for you (seriously) but there is a big difference between starting even a one-person company and working for an employer.
            It is employers crying because they can't hire staff for a pittance that get zero sympathy from me. They are all to ready to screw their employees when the market swings the other way.

            --
            If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:48AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:48AM (#1159368)

        Wait, isn't CNC literally a computer robot doing the work a man used to do, but better faster stronger longer cheaper? Remind me what we are arguing about...

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Friday July 23 2021, @02:58PM

          by mhajicek (51) on Friday July 23 2021, @02:58PM (#1159405)

          Correct, but it still needs a person to tell it what to do, set up fixtures and tools, and load stock It does greatly increase the output one person is capable of; one person can keep four CNCs running, generating an output equivalent to perhaps dozens of manual machinists, while making parts that are in many cases beyond the ability of any manual machinist. With a bit more capital investment, programming, and setup, the loading of stock, tools, fixtures, and programs can be largely automated as well, letting them run unattended for days at a time.

          As for how this ties in to the point, the demand for machined parts currently exceeds capacity, resulting in high prices and long lead times, especially for certain subsets. If you have the skills and drive, and can afford even a high end hobby grade machine or an old used industrial one, you can launch a business and soon get more and better machines.

          Yes, you have to have some money to get started. Are you going to start a job as a work from home programmer without first buying a decent computer, or a pizza delivery driver without a car? Even a manual machinist is expected to have thousands of dollars worth of his own tools, and I believe that's often true for mechanics as well.

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @02:10AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @02:10AM (#1159310)

    However, soon they should arrive at the female welders stage wherein we discover that welders have a rape and sexual harassment problem, they're incels who can't get laid, and that's why there are no female welders.

    No, no we don't need jobs robots can do. The only need that is being served with having humans do dangerous jobs that a remotely operated machine could do is the social need of rich gaslighting assholes for social domination.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:54AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:54AM (#1159359)

      Jordan Peterson on Gender Equality in employment.
      https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ln7pnpYwkT8 [youtube.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:51AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @07:51AM (#1159369)

        Tell Jordon thanks for saving Western civilization but we're good now, thanks. Participation trophes for all the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Good job, your work is done.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Friday July 23 2021, @02:37AM (1 child)

    by sjames (2882) on Friday July 23 2021, @02:37AM (#1159320) Journal

    Ideally we can replace most labor with robots, but unfortunately our current economic system and policies would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and turn the victorious march to technological utopia into a death march to starvation, unrest, and bloody revolution instead.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:09AM (#1159346)

      That's the robots' devious plan. Look at what works - misinformation, racism, trolling - and look around you. Tell me it's not a war out there.

  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Friday July 23 2021, @10:03AM

    by driverless (4770) on Friday July 23 2021, @10:03AM (#1159380)

    .. they'll never take oor Friiiiidomm!!!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @02:46PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @02:46PM (#1159404)

    maybe i got it wrong, but basically anything that needs energy in non-caloric Cornflakes form (food) is a robot without the brain part.
    a car? transport robot without a brain.
    a dig-dug? a big shoveling robot without brain.
    etc etc.
    take the whole human, tho you only mostly need the brain part and shove it into a robot.
    also, biological robot-brains -aka- humans -aka-command-unit with appendages can be programmed, flashed and copied rather easily and they self-multiply.
    they also tend to exchange ideas and experiences... :)

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 23 2021, @02:59PM

      by Freeman (732) on Friday July 23 2021, @02:59PM (#1159406) Journal

      Fallout had those dystopian kinds of human brain robots as well.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by srobert on Friday July 23 2021, @03:06PM (2 children)

    by srobert (4803) on Friday July 23 2021, @03:06PM (#1159407)

    If we have UBI in place, so that everyone has at least the bare minimum needed to live decently, then I won't object to a robot taking my job. Otherwise, I'll be among the many who will be throwing wrenches into the gears.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 23 2021, @05:53PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday July 23 2021, @05:53PM (#1159442)

      The main problem with the "Universal Basic Income, so not working isn't a big deal" plan is that it runs into people who can't stand the thought of anybody else having a chance to sit back and relax.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:27PM (#1159446)

      They are putting the finishing touches on the Kill Bots. Coming soon to a street corner near you.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:07PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:07PM (#1159444)

    At least, TFA does quote one partway honest person on the matter.

    Leading AI researcher, Andrew Ng, says, “despite all the hype and excitement about AI, it’s still extremely limited today relative to what human intelligence is.”

    Problem is, it's still extremely limited today relative to even what bee "intelligence" is.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:25PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @06:25PM (#1159445)

      The problem is that a lot of what humans can do can already be matched by an intelligence imitation using pattern recognition.

      The imitations will get exponentially more powerful hardware to reach slightly higher levels of accuracy, and the profits will fund the parallel development of actual artificial intelligence. Workers will be put in the ground with all the dead bees.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @08:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 23 2021, @08:14PM (#1159469)

        The problem is that a lot of what humans can do can already be matched by an intelligence imitation using pattern recognition.

        Only where some percentage of wildly wrong misrecognition is acceptable.
        Otherwise, you still need a human checking the recognizer's output.

        The tech we have now, can be quite useful for assisting a human: letting machine do the menial work, and checking its output to catch idiotic mistakes, is more productive if the rate of mistakes is low enough. But it is capable of replacing a human only where its inevitable idiotic mistakes do not matter (much): i.e. entertainment, fruit/vegetable sorting, and suchlike.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Saturday July 24 2021, @12:08PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday July 24 2021, @12:08PM (#1159561) Homepage Journal

    Automation has been putting people out of work ever since the steam engine was invented... no, before that, the loom put people out of work, as did the cotton gin. Not to mention all the oat farmers, farriers, and other in industries catering to horse owners when the automobile cane about. How about all the poor telegraph operators when phones were invented? Candlestick and oil lamp manufacturers when the electric light was invented?

    At one point before VCRs were supplanted, there was a VCR factory that had only six employees but made thousands of VCRs daily. In a couple hundred years almost nobody will work. They'll need a guaranteed minimum income like some are already pushing for.

    Here's [mcgrew.info] my idea of the year 2177, the only story I've written you could pin a concrete date on.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
  • (Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Saturday July 24 2021, @08:33PM

    by J_Darnley (5679) on Saturday July 24 2021, @08:33PM (#1159635)

    Robots Might Take Our Jobs, but Maybe We Need Them to

    Yes we need to make more people dependent on Daddy Government so they will never oppose us.

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