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Today's 6th graders will hit their prime working years in 2030.
By that time, the "robot apocalypse" could be fully upon us. Automation and artificial intelligence could have eliminated half the jobs in the United States economy.
Or, plenty of jobs could still exist, but today's students could be locked in a fierce competition for a few richly rewarded positions requiring advanced technical and interpersonal skills. Robots and algorithms would take care of what used to be solid working- and middle-class jobs. And the kids who didn't get that cutting-edge computer science course or life-changing middle school project? They'd be relegated to a series of dead-end positions, serving the elites who did.
Alternatively, maybe Bill Gates and Elon Musk and the other big names ringing the alarm are wrong. A decade from now, perhaps companies will still complain they can't find employees who can read an instruction manual and pass a drug test. Maybe workers will still be able to hold on to the American Dream, so long as they can adjust to incremental technological shifts in the workplace.
Which vision will prove correct?
30 years into the Information Revolution and schools are only just now realizing they should teach kids how to code...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pipedwho on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:53PM (44 children)
There seems to be an assumption that people that can code will be immune to the impending doom of an AI or robot apocalypse. I don't think this is true. Yes, there are some easily automated tasks that don't require much thought. And there are some repetitive manual jobs that can easily be automated.
But, just being able to code with some basic logic thought processes seems to me to be something that is just as likely to be automated.
Things on the harder to do list will be the old school tradesman like plumbers, electrician and handymen. Maybe some 'professional' careers, like doctors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and other high end 'sales' and 'business development' positions. Then of course, there's the ownership class. Beyond that, positions of leadership and government, and other bureaucratic nonsense. These types of jobs will have all sorts of 'political' pressure maintaining them.
But, IMO, random 'learn how to code' programs in schools aren't going to help transcend this problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @12:00AM
I expect the vast majority of legal work can and will be replaced by computers soon enough.
Things like document notarisation might still warrant a human professional...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @12:03AM (5 children)
Twenty years ago tech nerds who installed linux in their basements predicted a world dominated by nerds.
Ten years ago tech bros kicked the nerds to the curb as social media conquered the world instead.
Tech bros are next to get fucked.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday December 15 2017, @12:50AM (4 children)
hmmm.... let me know when the hot lesbian lingerie models get into programming, because I need to be in the following wave that
fucreplaces them.cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 15 2017, @03:09AM (2 children)
Unless you're a vibrator or something similarly genderless, I don't think any lesbian is going to want to fuck you. Sorry. It's a dictionary-definition sort of thing.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday December 15 2017, @04:47AM (1 child)
Do you know DECbot's gender?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Friday December 15 2017, @12:04PM
Well, if DECbot has an RS-232 port, it should be a male DE-9 connector.
Does that count?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday December 15 2017, @11:47AM
You mean that you're the one that wants to fill that hole!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Interesting) by crafoo on Friday December 15 2017, @12:12AM (15 children)
Yes, exactly.
Procurement, supply chain, sales will be automated. Machine learning systems are collecting massive datasets right now to build these systems. It's coming in 10 years.
Tasks that require 10-20 years of training and domain knowledge will be the last to automate. Plumbing, electricians, gutter installers, epoxy garage floor installers. Things that are physically complicated and have many many failure modes that impact quality, but which are not really documented or easily trained for.
Everyone else is getting fucked ASAP. The rest are going to get tossed into a human compost pit.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday December 15 2017, @12:38AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday December 15 2017, @12:06PM
Installing gutters in Klondike might be a gold mine...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by julian on Friday December 15 2017, @02:47AM (12 children)
I believe much of health care is safe for the next 30 years at least. The elderly, and the soon-to-be-elderly, prefer being waited on and treated by younger human beings. IBM's Watson will definitely be able to diagnose disease better and give more accurate advice, but people will still prefer a flawed human with good bed-side manner. As with most things this is at least partially a cultural preference. However, the desire and need to be cared for by other living, breathing, humans is an evolutionarily-ingrained drive. It's a two-way street, also. As hard as health care can be it's a source of great meaning and reward to many people. It's why they tolerate the terrible working conditions and the immense stress.
The future for humanity is more people taking care of other people, taking care of the environment, and taking care of themselves; all while machines and algorithms take care of the economy. That's one path, the other is the pursuit of open-ended wealth accretion because a small percentage of humans are born as sociopaths who cannot derive joy in life without dominating other human beings and causing them discomfort through enforcing a hierarchy of relative deprivation. These people *need* to immiserate others (relatively to themselves) to fend off their own ennui.
Those people have to lose.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 15 2017, @11:18AM (9 children)
Amen. I don't know if it has been verified by scientific peers, but there was a researcher who used MRIs to identify sociopaths.
It seems to me that being rated as one ought to disqualify you from any kind of position where you might have power over other people.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday December 15 2017, @11:51AM
Amen indeed!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Friday December 15 2017, @12:05PM (7 children)
Wow, guilty by association much? There might be a correlation between impaired empathy and antisocial behavior but that doesn't make all such people antisocial. What you are proposing is de facto persecuting thoughtcrime.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 15 2017, @02:58PM (5 children)
You won't let a blind person drive a car. You wouldn't hire a quadraplegic to be the center on your basketball team. But you would put a sociopath in charge of a company or polity upon which thousands of normal, healthy people rely, because you trust his judgement?
Me, I think that's a big part of the breakdown we're seeing now, which is that the seats of power in our society have accumulated too many sociopaths. But maybe you got yours already and don't think there's a problem, as the other 99% of the population does.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Friday December 15 2017, @07:34PM (2 children)
Apples and oranges. A blind person is incapable of driving. A sociopath is capable of reasoning and determining what is amoral.
I didn't say that, what I disagree with is (a) your assessment of the root of the problem and (b) your proposed solution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 15 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)
Not apples and oranges at all. Both are examples of impairment that preclude the performing of their respective functions; that is why I chose them. In neither case is it their fault, but they are impaired. A sociopath is impaired in that he cannot understand the empathy required to make moral decisions. Test: Would you leave your infant in the care of a sociopath? If not, why not? If not, why would we leave a thousand infants in the care of a sociopath? Why would we trust one to hold the power of life and death over any of us?
Me, I'd much prefer leaders who are humans, not sociopaths. A leader should understand very well the morality of his decisions and carefully weigh their impact upon citizens.
Is it that you think politicians, MBAs, and bankers are moral humans who are doing the absolute they can for humanity, and that concentrating all wealth and power into the hands of an extreme minority is a good thing, or something else like the result of their decisions and policies just accidentally concentrate all wealth and power into the hands of an extreme minority of them?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Friday December 15 2017, @10:43PM
This is objectively false. If you instruct a blind person to drive a car, he would be physically incapable of following the road. If you instruct a sociopath not to harm a puppy, he would be able not to kick it. Were you for example to present me with a blind person who through some means is capable of demonstrating the ability to drive at the same proficiency we expect from everyone else, I will be more than happy to drive on the same roads they do.
Your assumption that people with impaired empathy will necessarily commit atrocities is factually incorrect, although a sociopath is specifically defined as a person who exhibits antisocial behavior, that doesn't mean that people who have the same fundamental brain condition are incapable of acting morally of their own volition. It is just as bigoted to assume that everyone who matches your thoughtcrime detector will exhibit antisocial behavior, as it is to assume that everyone who matches a certain skull shape would.
No, I think we shouldn't allow for the existence of power structures in which runaway power accumulation is possible. The greatest failure of modern politics and economics is the fact we don't have a negative feedback effects into them, and thus the second million is just as valuable as the first million. If the laws of physics worked like our laws of economics, the universe would spontaneously combust. Is it any wonder that we keep seeing one economic crisis after another?
(Score: 3, Informative) by t-3 on Friday December 15 2017, @09:11PM
A sociopath may be the best person for the job. Leadership generally requires some sociopathic tendencies to be effective (and this is why I will not be surprised when sociopathy is shown to be an epigenetic adaptation in response to social/population cues similar to homosexuality) Being nice and caring about others is a crippling flaw in many hard-choice situations.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday December 16 2017, @06:38AM
I certainly wouldn't put you in charge. There is worse than sociopathy at work here. Sociopathy doesn't make someone unfit to run a business. But people who get the idea that poorly understood medical tests can find thoughtcrime should be removed from such responsibilities quickly before they destroy something.
Create incentives that reward sociopathic behavior and you get more sociopathic behavior.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Friday December 15 2017, @08:55PM
Fuckoff these people ruin the whole world for everyone and then scare the peons into giving them more power. They'd be the first in line to tell you life isn't fair if you were the one getting fucked and not them.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Friday December 15 2017, @03:02PM
Yes, health care is an activity that will continue to need doing, but who is going to pay for it? and with what exchange medium, because what are THEY getting paid for? And similarly how are the tools and consumables (sutures, bandages, medicine) to be paid for, if most people aren't working? The situation is normally seen in terms of locality: a tourist destination depends on outside money coming in to pay for lodging and services; a commodity location depends on outside money coming in for food or harvested/dug natural material going out. But if other people don't have money either, how is ANY of the system supposed to work? The "Star Trek" ideal of not needing money, or even to make money, because energy is so cheap and matter replication is so cheap that everyone can have everything, is not the same as capitalists borrowing money at interest to buy production robots (meaning any kind of machinery, not humanoid robots!), which replace "lots of people getting paid" with "bankers getting paid so that robot manufacturer gets paid" - a net narrowing of the scope of money circulation. The logical problem, that there's no reason for the production robots to produce as much because not as many people can pay for the products, doesn't happen until well after lots of people have been laid off and lots of money is owed to the banks for having replaced the people with robots. The cycle of money flowing is as necessary as water flowing back into rain; money doesn't help anybody sitting in a mattress, any more than electricity in a battery, it's all about money MOVING.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday December 15 2017, @05:31PM
What people want, what they can afford, and what is available as the next best alternate are all different things. The elderly may want to be waited on by the generations that they robbed. They may get something much, much different instead.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Friday December 15 2017, @12:13AM (7 children)
Exactly This.
People who speak like this have never set up a CNC machine to do something as simple as drill a hole.
Clue: coding is no longer necessary.
Teaching coding is probably a waste of time. The skill sets needed to manage robots are probably being ingrained into kids with joy sticks and game controllers in their hand. It sure as hell won't be written in C.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DECbot on Friday December 15 2017, @12:56AM
It's not. It's mostly carol, but the robot operators don't need to write that--just a few of the robot vendors that program the cabinets. Once sold, the carol code isn't touched. The customer just jogs the robot to the next point on the path the robot has to make and then saves a coordinate. Where the robot has to make an action, like following a curve or picking an object, you use the appropriate command and program that point. It's easier than training monkeys. Motoman has a new(ish) robot [youtube.com] where you don't even have to know how to jog the robot. You put it in a kinetic teach mode and physically push the robot arm to the next teach point.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @01:40AM (3 children)
Have to disagree with you there, even with modern CAM software calculating tool paths, the best setters will still tweak gcode on the machine itself. Just as the best computer programmers still tweak assembly.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday December 15 2017, @04:54AM (1 child)
Not if the programmer did their job right. Maybe quick write a main that calls all the programs to run over night, but everything else should post without any need for edits. This is especially true with five axis and dynamic/HFM paths.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @02:21PM
Code generators (compilers, CAM) can only ever be optimised for the general case. A valuable skill is being able to shave a microsecond off a tight loop in a program or being able to save 5 seconds on a 2 minute CNC program running 50,000 parts. We are so far from being able to automate the design and preparation required for these tasks that the skills will remain useful for the foreseeable future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 16 2017, @01:47AM
Still the disagree mod, from someone doesn't realise they're ultimately disagreeing with Autodesk. Anyone who 'disagree's can ask autodesk how to offset both the toolpath and the job to cut a spiral flute because their kernel simply cannot do it. TopSolid may be able to but who care's when an engineer can build a solution themselves for a fraction of the price of their software? Human ingenuity is the job that cannot be replaced and if you're an engineer that is what you are selling.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday December 15 2017, @01:48AM (1 child)
It's worse than that. Teaching coding when kids are young is a cruel waste of time, unless it's something like Logo Turtles. You shouldn't even try to program in a computer language until you're ready of elementary algebra, since the thought skills required are about the same.
This isn't to say that things like Scratch are a bad idea, but don't try to push them. A few kids will be able to take it and run with it, and let them. Most kids won't have a clue, and will just get turned off. A bad math teacher who tries to coerce kids to do math they aren't ready for is behind much of the hatred of math. Programming could go the same way.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Friday December 15 2017, @02:42AM
A computer language is nothing like elementary algebra.
98% (number from ass) of programming is get it here. change it this way. put it there. count it. rinse. repeat.
Maths departments have fucked up more good programmer/analysts than than they can count.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Friday December 15 2017, @12:39AM (6 children)
I agree that the trade skill jobs are going nowhere and likewise with doctors, bureaucrats, owners, and investors. Bankers, lawyers, and accountants can all be replaced with software and data entry specialists. There will be a few software people to write and maintain that code, but nothing on the scale as what is being replaced. You are right, a 'learn how to code' program in a school won't benefit the many. There needs to be a 'this is critical thinking' program along with 'this is what is currently happening' plus 'this is the trend' program in our schools. With that, the child should be able to use their new critical thinking skill to determine what is dead end career within their lifetime and what skill will provide a lifetime of employment. Our education system's failure is to (1) not provide them the necessary critical thinking skills and (2) deluded them about the real job market and the education required. Tell me again why everyone needs a college degree to do paperwork and the most routine of office duties?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @01:52AM (1 child)
Nor do you need a college degree to learn mathematics or computer science at a very high level. This is the 21st century, where people have access to massive amounts of high quality information that they could use to educate themselves, yet our view of education comes from the metaphorical dark ages. Employers require degrees even when it's not necessary just so they can filter out candidates more easily and avoid doing any actual work, which is the same reason why they utilize ridiculous personality tests ('I fear you're too introverted to be a team player, Bob.'). Then they turn around and complain about a lack of talent. You end up with losers who have a myriad of degrees and yet can't even write a simple fizzbuzz program.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @06:36AM
Just gonna point out that access to that information doesn't make learning it easy. Learning modalities matter. Some people learn MUCH better with a teacher, or doing problems, or so on - generally (geeeenerally) the more active, the better.
But yeah degree inflation and pumping out incompetent bachelors for CS and engineering indicate MAJOR problems coming down the line. The engineering fresh grads really, really scare me.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday December 15 2017, @05:30AM (3 children)
Except for fairly simple cases, no software will be replacing lawyers anytime soon.
Any non-trivial case involves:
If an algorithm could apply the law, it would not only replace lawyers but also judges, juries, appellate judges and the Supreme Court at the same time. It would simply adjudicate in favor of one party or the other, or dictate a sentence, which could not be appealed as it would be clearly superior in judgment to any human being and flawless. And at any rate, you would be appealing a computer-generated sentence to another computer, probably running Windows ;-)
So lawyers, like cockroaches, are here to stay.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @06:40AM (1 child)
Really strongly disagree with your examples:
- in some cases, plea bargaining
Negotiations are a particularly strong algorithmic suit. Very heavily studied in the abstract.
- appealing to human emotions (i.e. juries) and explaining or discrediting (to the client’s advantage) expert testimony
Jury trials are a tiny minority. Contextualizing to prove/disprove is a challenge but well within Watson at present.
- in some cases, the intent (mens rea) of the person is crucial to the case and if it is hard for humans, it will be near impossible for a computer to determine the intent of a human
Intent is literally impossible to know, but we can infer. But indeed, cases involving intent will be later to fall.
- interpretation of the law and the applicability (or not) or precedents or case-law to each particular incident, looking for loop-holes, mitigating circumstances or other aspects to advance a claim. In other words, applying human experience and judgment to each case.
Oh man... if you think this isn't an area in which "expert systems" are making huge strides, well, you'll be strode past, and sooner or later you'll notice.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday December 15 2017, @09:21PM
Catch a case that could land you in prison then tell me you want a computer to be your lawyer. I'll go with the slick talker every time, until we replace judges with computers, then I'll take an EMP.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday December 15 2017, @06:45AM
Progress is being made...
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/technology/lawyers-artificial-intelligence.html [nytimes.com]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fliptop on Friday December 15 2017, @02:54AM (4 children)
I'll add to that list. I doubt a robot will be able to change a tire or diagnose and repair a chassis noise. Being a mechanic doesn't (always) require any special schooling or certification. The ones I know make between $13 and $16 an hour and typically work 50 hours a week. Those jobs aren't going anywhere soon, unless people stop driving cars.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 3, Informative) by Unixnut on Friday December 15 2017, @10:45AM
But cars are becoming locked down "black boxes" not unlike mobile phones are.
30 years ago cars were mostly mechanical, and much simpler, so it was not hard to do mechanical work on them if you were not the OEM. Even ignoring people who spent their weekends tinkering with the car, people not into that would easily find a local independent garage to do work on them.
However as cars get more electrics, more computerised and digitised, you are finding the barriers to investment getting bigger. In the 90s it was still ok (but you had to know the secret button combos to enable diagnostic mode, which, if you didn't have the internet, was hard to find out), in the 00's you started needing to buy $5000 "diagnostic computers" (which were basically XP tablets with the company software reinstalled), and now, in 2017, you need always on connected to the manufaturer machines if you want to do diagnostics.
To put it into perspective, if you want to diagnose a fault with a certain German make, you have to buy their "Diagnostic computer" for around $2000, however after that, you have to pay yearly licences for things like "Transmission diagnostic", "Airbag diagnostics", "Engine diagnostics", etc... If you wanted to be able to diagnose any fault on the car, you would have to spend around $20,000 a year.
That is ok for a big garage who can absorb the cost over a large number of cars per year (especially if they specialise in that manufacturer), but a small independent garage is unlikely to afford it, let alone an individual paying for it just to work on their car. And it gets worse, with licensing, the OEM can place all kinds of demands and restrictions, with all the extra costs involved. So individuals and independents get locked out.
There is a trend slowly to make cars DRMed black boxes, and it will only get worse as cars start getting "AI" or self driving capability. OEMs want this because they found they can make a lot more money that way. Not unlike inkjet printer manufacturers, the big money is in the DRM cartridges. That is why servicing costs for new cars get more and more expensive (but car owners rant at "rip off garages" rather than realising it is the manufacturers increasing servicing costs)
I fully expect cars one day to be glued together pods, which are rented by the trip or leased for a set period, then returned for recycling or repair any massive automated service station. People interested in just getting from A to B would not have a need for car ownership (you see it more and more in cities, as "millenials" don't bother getting cars or driving licences). There will not be much demand for human mechanics, and they won't be able to do much on the cars anyway. There will most likely be a sizable "Classic car" minority, but they will most likely work on their own cars, or have a few specialist garages to cater to their needs.
So I don't see much of a future for intrepid car mechanics (unless they are good enough to be hired into one of the future big repair stations, doing whatever the robots can't, or make it as classic car mechanics/restorers). Quite frankly I think there will be more of a future for plumbers. No matter what happens in the future, humans will still need piped water and sewage systems, and those require going to the premises, interacting with humans, and dealing with a range of systems from victorian era plumbling to the latest eco-solar-combined-heat-magic-whizz-bang systems.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 15 2017, @11:22AM (2 children)
They won't go away entirely, but they will largely go away because electric cars require much less maintenance than internal combustion engines.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday December 15 2017, @01:47PM (1 child)
Perhaps, but chassis parts will remain mostly as they are today. These are the parts that need much more attention in terms of maintenance. The parts I'm speaking about here include: tires, brakes, wheel bearings, tie rods, ball joints, control arms, bushings, axles, wheel studs, lug nuts, and any ABS parts like sensors and tone rings. Wheel alignments too.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @09:27PM
And in any cold climate, salt corrosion and rust will degrade electrical connections and wire casings. Have fun getting your whole car torn apart looking for the bad ground, then replacing all the chips that got fried. Not to mention, electrical failures will be catastrophic as less and less mechanical control is available to the driver.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @12:07PM
Supply and demand loosely dictates the value of any career. Being a plumber, electrician, or mechanic is great until there are five hundred of them in two blocks (in the city) or within three miles (in a suburb). Likewise, in my particular suburbs owning a pizza shop, sandwich shop, or coffee shop was probably a good idea twenty years ago but today I can't throw a rock now without hitting one. They pop up and fold all of the time.
If my kids want to be plumbers I won't stop them, I am sure it's still better than getting a job in retail or fast food or hotel cleaning. But I suspect a good plumber in 2030 won't make the same living relative to inflation that a good plumber in 1990 did.
I'm trying to push my kids into code and robotics. I'm a moderately skilled developer, I've worked at a lot of things in my almost twenty years in the field. But aside from being able to swap parts in a PC I know zip about robotics, signals, and electrical motors. Learning it is on my to-do list, but my top free time priority is keeping active on Github so that employers don't overlook me because of the gray hair.