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posted by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the ya-tvoy-sluga-ya-tvoy-rabotnik dept.

regift_of_the_gods writes:

"A study that was published last year by two Oxford researchers predicted that 47 percent of US jobs could be computerized within the next 20 years, including both manual labor and high cognition office work. The Oxford report presented three axes to show what types of jobs were relatively safe from being routed by robots and software; those requiring high levels of social intelligence (public relations), creativity (scientist, fashion designer), or perception and manipulation (surgeon) were less likely to be displaced.

This further obsolescence of jobs due to automation may have already begun. The Financial Times describes an emerging wave of products and services from algorithmic-intensive, data-rich tech startups that will threaten increasing numbers of jobs including both knowledge and blue collar workers. The lead example is Kensho, a startup founded by ex-Google and Apple engineers that is building an engine to estimate the impact of real or hypothetical news items on security prices, with questions posed in a natural language. Specialist knowledge workers in many other fields, including law and medicine, could also be at risk. At lower income levels, the dangerous are posed by increasingly agile and autonomous robots, such as those Amazon uses to staff some of its fulfillment warehouses.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by githaron on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:22PM

    by githaron (581) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:22PM (#10717)

    My real concern is that cheaper and more powerful automation will just accelerate the consolidation of wealth.

    At first, you are probably right. Later, given the opportunity, the reverse will probably be true. Look at the music industry. It use to be all the money was made a only a few key players. Now, there is more people making a living off of music than there probably has ever been before. Why? Because the people now have the ability to afford the equipment necessary to make quality recordings.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by cafebabe on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:43PM

    by cafebabe (894) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:43PM (#10731) Journal

    According to http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_i nternet_destroyed_the_middle_class/ [salon.com] (found via http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/01/07/1340211/ [slashdot.org]), Jaron Lanier estimated that approximately 50 artists in the US make money in hip-hop music and in all genres it is "low hundreds".

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    • (Score: 1) by HiThere on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:25PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:25PM (#10926) Journal

      To be fair, that's just artists, and there are other jobs in music. So it's not at extreme as you are suggesting. But there's definitely a lot fewer than there were in 1913...probably by multiple thousands. (In 1913 there was generally at least one professional musician in every town or large village. Cities would have many more.) And there were many more small towns then than there are now.

      OTOH, recording engineers, clerks in music stores (do they still exist?), etc. aren't counted as artists, even though they earn their living in the "music industry".

      So I don't believe that you can trust his figures WRT number of jobs. They are too exclusive. But he's pointing in the way things are going. (Recording engineers are being de-skilled now, and will be replaced soon, e.g., and "music shop clerks" have already been largely replaced by the internet.)

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      • (Score: 1) by cafebabe on Friday March 07 2014, @06:39PM

        by cafebabe (894) on Friday March 07 2014, @06:39PM (#12846) Journal

        recording engineers, clerks in music stores (do they still exist?), etc. aren't counted as artists, even though they earn their living in the "music industry".

        I considered supporting roles before I posted. In general, I'd say that they aren't equivalent. Consider: Would you rather be a talent scout in an audience or a musician playing to the audience? In a more extreme example, would you rather be a rapper with a record deal or a music store clerk?

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        • (Score: 1) by HiThere on Friday March 07 2014, @07:28PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 07 2014, @07:28PM (#12879) Journal

          They are, however, jobs. Some of the jobs that pay(paid?) much more than the average artist earns. E.g., owner of a record store.

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    • (Score: 1) by len_harms on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:58PM

      by len_harms (1904) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:58PM (#10952) Journal

      His assumption was that Kodak made product. They sold 'razor blades'. Digital pictures removed their razor blade market. Much like CD's, DVD's, books, TV, film, etc. I do not care about the medium it is on. I want to enjoy the product.

      Kodak could not keep up because their product was not cameras or making pictures. It was film. People also realized they did not need physical copies of every picture. You basically usually got the whole roll printed as you didnt know what you were going to get. Now you can choose 1-2 good ones and throw out the other 500 or just drop them on some storage.

      If we could digitize real razor blades Gillette would be out of business in 5 years.

      If you have a job that depends on physical media and there even a hint of a chance it could be digitized get out. Music is in the same mess. As to make a copy now is extremely low cost (both dollar wise and time wise). Where as before you had to goto the gatekeepers and their gatekeepers of the razor blades to sell it. You could justify the high cost to make the original copy because the margin was there. Movies are not quite there yet as the time to distribute is still somewhat high.

      With low cost creation and low cost distribution the middle mans margin is eliminated.

      Blockbuster went from top of the world to bankruptcy in under 20 years. Because they did not do what their competitors did. Eliminate cost from the consumer chain and more importantly pass it on.

      We were/are witnessing a whole group of people who made the medium our culture was printed on going away. We are also seeing the middle man who were the gatekeepers going away too or at the very least changing dramatically. It will not go 100% away but the scale they worked at before is going to be curtailed.