How long until a robot takes your job?

[mozar]

I think the point is slightly being missed on whether or not a robot will replace your job 1 for 1. The question is whether automated / automatic technology can replace PORTIONS of your job within, let's say, 10 years. The answer for many of us will likely be YES.

From a macro point of view, if it takes 0.75 times as many people to do a specific type of job there will have to be a reduction in the job force. The goal for most of us will be making sure you are not in the bottom 25% of your workforce, luckily be in a job which is currently heavily weighted towards an older population and therefore attrition will weed down the numbers, or switch to a job more difficult to replace or that grows with growing robotics (electrician, instrument technician, etc).

I feel like this is where we are now. A robot (software) has already taken parts of my job. For people who are in the bottom 25% of accounting like the A/R and A/P folks, software has already completely taken their jobs. So to be more specific I am asking how long you have until software replaces people almost entirely i.e. 75%+.

[Threshkin]

I think I am pretty secure from automation.

My job is mainly "other duties as assigned" working cross-functionally with many different people around the company.  Most of what I do are one-off or short duration tasks that land in my lap because no one else in my department knows what to do (or wants to know in some cases).

Our company is in the large-scale software business.  We create programs, tools and platforms to automate business processes.  For the most part our customers use our products to augment staff and enhance productivity.  This allows our customers to grow without hiring as many new staff.

Does this put people out of work?  In our opinion, no because they are not hired to begin with.

Others may disagree with this saying, our products allow companies to employ fewer people, putting people out of work.

I am reading a book on the great depression that touches on this philosophy. During the great depression when unemployment was between 20 and 25%, New Deal era reformers argued against allowing farmers to use heavy equipment because it "put people out of work".  If a single steam shovel can replace ten workers with shovels,  they argued that you should hire the workers to increase employment.  The logical progression to this is to make the workers use teaspoons instead of shovels!  Then you could "employ" 100 workers to get the same job done!

[Insanity]

I think I am pretty secure from automation.

My job is mainly "other duties as assigned" working cross-functionally with many different people around the company.  Most of what I do are one-off or short duration tasks that land in my lap because no one else in my department knows what to do (or wants to know in some cases).

Our company is in the large-scale software business.  We create programs, tools and platforms to automate business processes.  For the most part our customers use our products to augment staff and enhance productivity.  This allows our customers to grow without hiring as many new staff.

Does this put people out of work?  In our opinion, no because they are not hired to begin with.

Others may disagree with this saying, our products allow companies to employ fewer people, putting people out of work.

I am reading a book on the great depression that touches on this philosophy. During the great depression when unemployment was between 20 and 25%, New Deal era reformers argued against allowing farmers to use heavy equipment because it "put people out of work".  If a single steam shovel can replace ten workers with shovels,  they argued that you should hire the workers to increase employment.  The logical progression to this is to make the workers use teaspoons instead of shovels!  Then you could "employ" 100 workers to get the same job done!

The difference is that the industrial revolution was purely mechanical.  This is knowledge.  The industrial revolution really didn't enable globalization as time was still a factor.  Global corporations didn't really exist.

[Threshkin]

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The difference is that the industrial revolution was purely mechanical.  This is knowledge.  The industrial revolution really didn't enable globalization as time was still a factor.  Global corporations didn't really exist.

I don't follow your argument.  Please explain what you mean.  Thanks!

[Insanity]

clip

The difference is that the industrial revolution was purely mechanical.  This is knowledge.  The industrial revolution really didn't enable globalization as time was still a factor.  Global corporations didn't really exist.

I don't follow your argument.  Please explain what you mean.  Thanks!

The industrial revolution made it easier for people to do their jobs.  It hurt some labor markets, but over all none if those machines had the capability to really do something without a human being involved.  The rate if employee replacement was pretty low.

The knowledge revolution has the capability to replace jobs at a much higher clip.  Take a look at automated cars, stocking robots, or even what I was talking about earlier, data center virtualization and automation.  The effort to build and deploy and manage systems through code has severely cut down the number of IT staff needed to support it.  If auto driving cars are successful, they could wipe out the need for taxi drivers, truck drivers, tour bus drivers. 

Having intelligent machines has a different scale of replacement than just simply putting machines there.

When the industrial revolution hit, it still took a crazy long time to go cross country.  Now, it takes hours to go around the globe. 

The scale is just completely different. 

[mozar]

Adding to the "it's different this time choir" when machines replaced farmers they were able to move to factories. This time there's no where to go. Or at least no where that I know of. Anyways, it's also interesting to hear from people who don't think their job will be automated.

[GodlessCommie]

The bigger question is how we will adjust to a world where productivity is so high that there is no need for everyone to work a 40 hour week, and contributions from a large portion of a society are not needed at all

Keynes (a very famous economist) considered a similar question almost a hundred years ago, though due to technological improvements in the 19th century not robots.  He predicted that we would all be working 15 hours weeks by now, which hasn't quite happened.

True, and many others predicted the "end of work" to come much sooner. There was a reason I asked for the input from the right of the political spectrum. What approach the left would take is pretty clear. It is what conservatives will offer for a situation when labor of a majority of the population is simply not needed is the question.

[GodlessCommie]

Adding to the "it's different this time choir" when machines replaced farmers they were able to move to factories. This time there's no where to go. Or at least no where that I know of. Anyways, it's also interesting to hear from people who don't think their job will be automated.

Prime time to invent something that we all desperately need and are ready to pay for, and what robots cannot do.

Or just accept that FI starts at birth, provided by our robot overlords.

[Erica/NWEdible]

If a robot could fold those damn fitted sheets, then I would gladly buy it.

It's all about the pocket tuck, my friend. https://youtu.be/_Z5k9nWcuFc?t=41s

[cerebus]

I think the point is slightly being missed on whether or not a robot will replace your job 1 for 1. The question is whether automated / automatic technology can replace PORTIONS of your job within, let's say, 10 years. The answer for many of us will likely be YES.

Again it depends. For what I do, I have almost no fear that this could happen. There's a human component to every business with no exceptions.
 In addition as with all things technological, people overestimate the capabilities of programming and underestimate the complexity of machine learning for roles that are complex and niche. You need teams of brilliant programmers to automate accounting tasks for instance- who is going to program a business analyst role, dealing with deep system knowledge? It's impossible. Or a CEO role- glibly thinking that negotiations would be less error prone in software; but how does the software learn the nuances of negotiation?

I think that automation of jobs will continue for a while but it will hit a curve where the complexity and specialisation of jobs, once the low hanging fruit is gone, becomes insurmountable and just not worth it to program

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[FIRE me]

What trends are you noticing in your field? Anybody want to speculate with me?

I work in manufacturing, so the trend is always towards more automation. As for my job, 19 more months and then as far as I'm concerned, the robot is welcome to it.

[forummm]

What trends are you noticing in your field? Anybody want to speculate with me?

I work in manufacturing, so the trend is always towards more automation. As for my job, 19 more months and then as far as I'm concerned, the robot is welcome to it.

You hear about how manufacturing has left the US. But what they mean is that the number of manufacturing jobs has fallen off a cliff. There's actually an increasing amount of manufacturing taking place in the US. There just aren't many jobs in manufacturing at those plants because of the automation. Some of those machines are pretty incredible. But they do need a small number of people to design and build the machines and to program and re-program them as well.

[Midwest]

I think the point is slightly being missed on whether or not a robot will replace your job 1 for 1. The question is whether automated / automatic technology can replace PORTIONS of your job within, let's say, 10 years. The answer for many of us will likely be YES.

From a macro point of view, if it takes 0.75 times as many people to do a specific type of job there will have to be a reduction in the job force. The goal for most of us will be making sure you are not in the bottom 25% of your workforce, luckily be in a job which is currently heavily weighted towards an older population and therefore attrition will weed down the numbers, or switch to a job more difficult to replace or that grows with growing robotics (electrician, instrument technician, etc).

I feel like this is where we are now. A robot (software) has already taken parts of my job. For people who are in the bottom 25% of accounting like the A/R and A/P folks, software has already completely taken their jobs. So to be more specific I am asking how long you have until software replaces people almost entirely i.e. 75%+.

CPA here.  Yes, many aspects of accounting at the lower level have been automated. 

On the flip side, however, there is the ability due to technology to analyze substantially more data in a more efficient manner.  Somebody has to manage and interpret this data.  Also, as efficiency goes up I believe regulatory burdens do as well because all this added data makes it possible to analyze things that weren't possible before.

Accounting is changing but not going away in the near term.  Long term all jobs evolve.

[401Killer]

<<--- Is an industrial robot engineer. Someone's got to program them.

It is good to be the "robot guy".

[Spoom]

I'm a software developer, so much more advanced software developers would have to create a very good AI to replace me.  I figure that will take at least ten years and by then, I should be FI.

Basic income should probably be a thing by the time there aren't enough jobs for the people who need them.

[rocksinmyhead]

maybe I'm less optimistic about robots or just don't know enough about our current technology, but I don't see a robot completely taking over my job in my lifetime... like others have said, though, computers/technological advances have absolutely made people doing my job more efficient so we need fewer of them (us?). when I think about the old timers correlating well logs and contouring maps by hand, it completely boggles my mind, when today we have computers with thousands of correlations picked by current and former employees of my company and I can use them to make a map in 30 seconds.

[iamlittlehedgehog]

A computer could certainly do my job. I'm a paralegal/legal assistant. 85% of my job is filling out forms and submitting them to the correct people. However I don't see that happening anytime in the small firms I work for, maybe the larger firms. A couple years ago there was a big worry that PA/LA work would be shipped overseas to India-that didn't work out very well. Attorneys often need a sounding board/therapist/life manager and I don't think these function could be filled with a computer.
I should also mention there are older attorneys I work for that don't even know how to work Microsoft Word or a basic OS. Brilliant legal minds, they just never had to learn about computers because they had PA/LAs their entire career who did it for them. 

[Threshkin]

clip

The difference is that the industrial revolution was purely mechanical.  This is knowledge.  The industrial revolution really didn't enable globalization as time was still a factor.  Global corporations didn't really exist.

I don't follow your argument.  Please explain what you mean.  Thanks!

The industrial revolution made it easier for people to do their jobs.  It hurt some labor markets, but over all none if those machines had the capability to really do something without a human being involved.  The rate if employee replacement was pretty low.

The knowledge revolution has the capability to replace jobs at a much higher clip.  Take a look at automated cars, stocking robots, or even what I was talking about earlier, data center virtualization and automation.  The effort to build and deploy and manage systems through code has severely cut down the number of IT staff needed to support it.  If auto driving cars are successful, they could wipe out the need for taxi drivers, truck drivers, tour bus drivers. 

Having intelligent machines has a different scale of replacement than just simply putting machines there.

When the industrial revolution hit, it still took a crazy long time to go cross country.  Now, it takes hours to go around the globe. 

The scale is just completely different.

Hmmm, and the shift to automobiles didn't put lots of people out of work?  Carriage makers, buggy whip makers, farriers, grooms, porters, etc? 

In many ways the industrial revolution was more rapid and disruptive to society than the current robotics/AI trend.  In about 50 years entire industries were transformed and entire skill sets became obsolete.  Look up the riots in France over the introduction of the Jacquard loom or the violent Luddite movement in England for a couple of examples in the textile industry alone. 

Change is inevitable.  If you try to live a life that depends on nothing changing you will fail.  On the other hand, change brings opportunity and entirely new industries.

[Insanity]

clip

The difference is that the industrial revolution was purely mechanical.  This is knowledge.  The industrial revolution really didn't enable globalization as time was still a factor.  Global corporations didn't really exist.

I don't follow your argument.  Please explain what you mean.  Thanks!

The industrial revolution made it easier for people to do their jobs.  It hurt some labor markets, but over all none if those machines had the capability to really do something without a human being involved.  The rate if employee replacement was pretty low.

The knowledge revolution has the capability to replace jobs at a much higher clip.  Take a look at automated cars, stocking robots, or even what I was talking about earlier, data center virtualization and automation.  The effort to build and deploy and manage systems through code has severely cut down the number of IT staff needed to support it.  If auto driving cars are successful, they could wipe out the need for taxi drivers, truck drivers, tour bus drivers. 

Having intelligent machines has a different scale of replacement than just simply putting machines there.

When the industrial revolution hit, it still took a crazy long time to go cross country.  Now, it takes hours to go around the globe. 

The scale is just completely different.

Hmmm, and the shift to automobiles didn't put lots of people out of work?  Carriage makers, buggy whip makers, farriers, grooms, porters, etc? 

In many ways the industrial revolution was more rapid and disruptive to society than the current robotics/AI trend.  In about 50 years entire industries were transformed and entire skill sets became obsolete.  Look up the riots in France over the introduction of the Jacquard loom or the violent Luddite movement in England for a couple of examples in the textile industry alone. 

Change is inevitable.  If you try to live a life that depends on nothing changing you will fail.  On the other hand, change brings opportunity and entirely new industries.

The shift to automobiles and industry increased jobs.  More cars than horse and buggies translated to taxi drivers.  Could the same be done with knowledge revolution?  Maybe.

[Schaefer Light]

The bigger question is how we will adjust to a world where productivity is so high that there is no need for everyone to work a 40 hour week, and contributions from a large portion of a society are not needed at all

Keynes (a very famous economist) considered a similar question almost a hundred years ago, though due to technological improvements in the 19th century not robots.  He predicted that we would all be working 15 hours weeks by now, which hasn't quite happened.

True, and many others predicted the "end of work" to come much sooner. There was a reason I asked for the input from the right of the political spectrum. What approach the left would take is pretty clear. It is what conservatives will offer for a situation when labor of a majority of the population is simply not needed is the question.

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

[forummm]

The bigger question is how we will adjust to a world where productivity is so high that there is no need for everyone to work a 40 hour week, and contributions from a large portion of a society are not needed at all

Keynes (a very famous economist) considered a similar question almost a hundred years ago, though due to technological improvements in the 19th century not robots.  He predicted that we would all be working 15 hours weeks by now, which hasn't quite happened.

True, and many others predicted the "end of work" to come much sooner. There was a reason I asked for the input from the right of the political spectrum. What approach the left would take is pretty clear. It is what conservatives will offer for a situation when labor of a majority of the population is simply not needed is the question.

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

If there aren't enough jobs for everyone to have one, or even 80% of people to have one, what do you think should be done, if anything, about that?

[mozar]

We're currently at 63% and declining.

http://www.voxeu.org/article/decline-labour-force-participation-us

[forummm]

The bigger question is how we will adjust to a world where productivity is so high that there is no need for everyone to work a 40 hour week, and contributions from a large portion of a society are not needed at all

Keynes (a very famous economist) considered a similar question almost a hundred years ago, though due to technological improvements in the 19th century not robots.  He predicted that we would all be working 15 hours weeks by now, which hasn't quite happened.

True, and many others predicted the "end of work" to come much sooner. There was a reason I asked for the input from the right of the political spectrum. What approach the left would take is pretty clear. It is what conservatives will offer for a situation when labor of a majority of the population is simply not needed is the question.

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

If there aren't enough jobs for everyone to have one, or even 80% of people to have one, what do you think should be done, if anything, about that?

I realize the language is ambiguous here. I meant only enough jobs for 20% and 80% without a job.

[aspiringnomad]

The bigger question is how we will adjust to a world where productivity is so high that there is no need for everyone to work a 40 hour week, and contributions from a large portion of a society are not needed at all

Keynes (a very famous economist) considered a similar question almost a hundred years ago, though due to technological improvements in the 19th century not robots.  He predicted that we would all be working 15 hours weeks by now, which hasn't quite happened.

True, and many others predicted the "end of work" to come much sooner. There was a reason I asked for the input from the right of the political spectrum. What approach the left would take is pretty clear. It is what conservatives will offer for a situation when labor of a majority of the population is simply not needed is the question.

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

As a slightly to the left of US national politics, but nonpartisan pragmatist, I concur with you.

Also, I think many people here are grossly underestimating the power of exponential growth with respect to AI. In my opinion, the legal field will be among the very first white collar fields to be decimated (it's already happening to a degree). Legalese, human-made barriers to entry like the bar, and the other bullshit that field has thrown up to protect its human incumbents will be no match for more effective robots. Those that interact with humans in a very human way (ie: social workers and other ways that do not involve numbers or "negotiation skills" that can be easily learned) are probably safe for a while. That said, no one here has to worry, because we're capitalists via our investments and, in any case, there will be a lengthy transition period while frustrated robots machine-learn all about our change-resistant and defensive nature. Also, although the transition will be incredibly painful for many people, I'm a firm believer that the lack of human jobs will free us up to pursue passions without most having to follow the principles of Mustachianism. It may be a couple generations, but it seems inevitable barring some information blackout or other developed world catastrophe.

[tomsang]

Rweba. I agree with everything that you say. To me the technological advancement is going to be amazing, the scary part is the political part of the equation. Currently the benefits that have been seen have been disappropriately going to the 1% or top .01%. Those who own the companies rule the world. In the past and somewhat currently a person had a chance to break out and succeed. When human labor and knowledge is no longer needed, there will be very little ability to move up in the world. The GOP and top business leaders love the current situation. It is not beneficial to the 99% and at some point the 99% are just leaches to the owners of the corporations and technology. How the miracles of the technology is shared with all members of this world will be the next big hurdle.

Warren Buffett was proposing beefing up the Earned Income Tax Credit. You mentioned a universal basic income. These logically make sense, but the GOP has done an amazing job of convincing those that would benefit from these plans that they are bad because they are socialist. Look at Obamacare. Something has to change, or it will be scary. The Supreme Court is going to be incredibly important in the near future. The GOP has stacked the deck with very right wing conservatives. If a few more liberals are replaced it could get ugly. We had the conservatives Suprreme Court say that companies are people. It is not out there that they say that corporations have all rights to the technology and the benefits. They have the ability to uphold laws that are fair to society or defend the fiefdom of corporations and their owners. Scary for people who don't own the corporations and have little in what they bring to the table for society. I plan on owning the corporations so that I have a fighting chance to enjoy the amazing benefits of the technological advancements.

[big_slacker]

See my post on the last page prof. :)

I am a professor in Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and sometimes I find these discussions a little bit frustrating. The focus is always so negative.

-Jobs being taken.
-Lives being destroyed.

But what about the positive aspects?

[Insanity]

Cheaper != better.  Everyone knows people with a purpose live more fulfilled and longer lives.  What becomes the purpose?  This isn't a positive or negative.  It will be am adjustment and how quickly people have to make that adjustment could lead to a set of challenges and major struggles for some to adapt to.  We (society) need to be prepared for that.

[Insanity]

Cheaper != better.  Everyone knows people with a purpose live more fulfilled and longer lives.  What becomes the purpose?  This isn't a positive or negative.  It will be am adjustment and how quickly people have to make that adjustment could lead to a set of challenges and major struggles for some to adapt to.  We (society) need to be prepared for that.

[MandyM]

My field (a design field) had a lot of computer optimization (CADD) introduced in the 1980's and it has continued progressively.  However, it has lead to the work that we do becoming more complex.  I believe that it has shifted a lot of the workload from field experts to the designer.  Although it has protected the limited jobs in my field, I'm not sure that the work is better for it.

I fall somewhere in this category as well. I think the biggest obstacle for robot intervention of my job is the lack of historical information to use in the design. The vast majority of my design is buried infrastructure (water/sewer pipes and structures) and sometimes the most difficult part is to figure out what is already in the ground. Sure, this will improve over time, but even within the last 5 years someone's memory was the only thing holding important data. And getting to it required asking just the right question. I welcome the day where that is not part of the design process (although I will be FIREd by then...)

[Schaefer Light]

The bigger question is how we will adjust to a world where productivity is so high that there is no need for everyone to work a 40 hour week, and contributions from a large portion of a society are not needed at all

Keynes (a very famous economist) considered a similar question almost a hundred years ago, though due to technological improvements in the 19th century not robots.  He predicted that we would all be working 15 hours weeks by now, which hasn't quite happened.

True, and many others predicted the "end of work" to come much sooner. There was a reason I asked for the input from the right of the political spectrum. What approach the left would take is pretty clear. It is what conservatives will offer for a situation when labor of a majority of the population is simply not needed is the question.

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

If there aren't enough jobs for everyone to have one, or even 80% of people to have one, what do you think should be done, if anything, about that?

I'm not sure that the job loss will be this massive.  When robots take our current jobs and we have more free time on our hands, I think that whole new industries (things we can't even imagine right now) will pop up.  Also, I believe we'll see a lot more people working for themselves and inventing cool niche products for others to use and enjoy.  The robots will make it cheaper to develop these products and that means it will be easier for average-Joe's to start their own companies.

I also think a lot of people will start spending more money when robots reduce their working hours because let's face it...when you have more free time, there's more time to spend money.  I know my spending tends to go up when I'm not working, and I'm sure the same holds true for most people.  More spending will lead to more jobs.  And even if a lot of those jobs are automated, there will still be some percentage going to humans.

Even if all of my predictions about new jobs are wrong, the robots should make things cheaper (meaning we shouldn't need to work as many hours to earn enough to support ourselves).  And who could possibly complain about shorter work weeks?

[Cpa Cat]

I don't understand the job loss concern. Over our human history, we have had periods of massive technological advancement which have drastically reduced the need for human labor. And yet these advancements have generally led to increased economic output and increased quality of life.

Sure, in the short term, it might lead to economic distress for some people, but for the most part, society will just move on. We'll invent new jobs. We can't picture what those new jobs will be, because we're not there yet.

Imagine being a farmer in 1900 and trying to imagine what the world was going to look like with mechanized farming.

[Vilgan]

In the long term it seems like society will be fine. New industries will pop up to replace the old ones and there are vast amounts of cool things to explore. VR is in its infancy for example. Vehicle automation is in its infancy. Robots in general are pretty early stage.

One issue is the people who are experienced in areas that are no longer needed and don't have the mental agility to easily switch careers. Over time, society will correct as those people die off and younger people replace them, but it could still be uncomfortable to be one of the older people who have been replaced by robots and the younger generation. This isn't a new problem, but one that could be more prominent in the next 20 years.

[Threshkin]

I don't understand the job loss concern. Over our human history, we have had periods of massive technological advancement which have drastically reduced the need for human labor. And yet these advancements have generally led to increased economic output and increased quality of life.

Sure, in the short term, it might lead to economic distress for some people, but for the most part, society will just move on. We'll invent new jobs. We can't picture what those new jobs will be, because we're not there yet.

Imagine being a farmer in 1900 and trying to imagine what the world was going to look like with mechanized farming.

In the long term it seems like society will be fine. New industries will pop up to replace the old ones and there are vast amounts of cool things to explore. VR is in its infancy for example. Vehicle automation is in its infancy. Robots in general are pretty early stage.

One issue is the people who are experienced in areas that are no longer needed and don't have the mental agility to easily switch careers. Over time, society will correct as those people die off and younger people replace them, but it could still be uncomfortable to be one of the older people who have been replaced by robots and the younger generation. This isn't a new problem, but one that could be more prominent in the next 20 years.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make.  Old jobs are replaced with new jobs.  This is a disruptive process to people who cannot or do not want to change but in the whole, it is a productive thing.

My point about the industrial revolution is that it ushered in enormous change to what had been a very stable working environment.  Jobs and industries had been essentially unchanged for hundreds of years were being transformed virtually overnight.  This was much more disruptive at that time because people were unaccustomed to change.  Today, change is rapid and constant.  Many industries and careers today are completely new or are radically different than they were just 25 years ago.  Society is much more accustomed to change today than it was during the Industrial revolution.

[sol]

Over our human history, we have had periods of massive technological advancement which have drastically reduced the need for human labor. And yet these advancements have generally led to increased economic output and increased quality of life.

Try to imagine how an 1850s average citizen farmer or factory worker would react to learning that future Americans would spend an average of 5 hours per day perfectly motionless, staring at an illuminated screen full of advertisements for disposable consumer goods.

I'm sure we'll find some way to fill our time once machines finish making human labor obsolete.  We've made more progress toward that goal in the past century than in all of previous human history, so it wouldn't surprise me if we finish the job in my lifetime.

[GodlessCommie]

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the investment part (other than I prefer MPT), do you think 80% unemployment requires actions beyond making sure your personal finances are in order? Mind you, those are armed unemployed with no prospects of putting bread on their tables (we assume nothing socialist is being done to help them), and 8:2 ratio is not exactly favorable for those who kicked their feet up and are enjoying a cold beverage.

[Schaefer Light]

As a conservative, I would recommend investing in the companies making the robots and then kicking your feet up and watching your portfolio grow while sipping on a cold beverage.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the investment part (other than I prefer MPT), do you think 80% unemployment requires actions beyond making sure your personal finances are in order? Mind you, those are armed unemployed with no prospects of putting bread on their tables (we assume nothing socialist is being done to help them), and 8:2 ratio is not exactly favorable for those who kicked their feet up and are enjoying a cold beverage.

I don't think unemployment is going to get that high unless we start paying people not to work.  This is partly because people who can't afford kids would (presumably) start having fewer children and the general population would get smaller.  Again, I don't think anything this drastic is going to happen simply due to robots.  Now, robots combined with bad economic policy could be a problem.

[forummm]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/new-research-says-robots-are-unlikely-to-eat-our-jobs/

[Merrie]

For my job, it's going to be a while. Any job that requires "professional judgment" will take some time imo; you can teach a computer all sorts of facts and pattern recognition, but learning how to put those facts together, make a decision, adjust it on the fly according to the patient/client, how to tell when to push the other person and when to back off, etc. etc. If the quality of the drug interaction software and the pill-dispensing robot at work tell me anything, it's that I'm a long way from being replaced... those two things help me do my job, but I still have to be there to troubleshoot them. The robot does replace some technician time devoted purely to pill-counting but there is a lot more to our job than that. As for the more human-interaction things, I suppose only time will tell whether patients will accept robotic doctors/nurses/pharmacists/etc.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

An optimistic way of looking at this is that people who see their jobs as easily replaced by robots and software generally have jobs that are repetitive and don't allow for creativity and change.  Those are the jobs humans should want replaced, even if unemployment is an issue during the transition.  If society becomes more wealthy, people are paid more for things like cutting hair, restaurant chef, arts, police, nurses, teachers, and other personal services.  At least this is how it works in Norway.  Thus people work at professions of their choosing, not just because it is a well-paid industry or because that's where the job growth is.  There will have to be a shift toward socialism, away from capitalism though - the 'winner takes all mentality' won't be sustainable.

[Leisured]

The question is not whether some arcane job in project management or an unusually complicated real estate transaction can be automated. The number of people working in such areas is small. The question is how many jobs can automation of the near future take? There is a widespread consensus that the number of jobs which machines will take over in the near future will be large.

Back office work has been automated for a long time. The late British novelist Nevil Shute started working life as an aeronautical engineer working in 1930 on a large airship project, the R101, I think. In his autobiography, Slide Rule, he described spending three months with a slide rule calculating stresses at numerous points in the airframe of the airship. Computers have done that sort of work for 50 years.

[Leisured]

Or just accept that FI starts at birth, provided by our robot overlords.

+1, but robot servants rather than overlords

[brooklynguy]

Nice article by Ezra Klein about how society should look to MMM as a role model for how to live life when automation leads to a post-work world:

Vox:  When the robots take our jobs, America will need to learn to respect the unemployed

[PloddingInsight]

The real question is, will workers be able to support themselves while working for even less money than it costs to hire a robot?

If we imagine that just one job is fully and cheaply automated, the answer is clearly no.  Call this the "all other things being equal" fallacy.  It's a fallacy because those other things are not equal.

If we imagine that all jobs are (potentially) automated, the answer is yes, you can afford to underbid the robot.  In a truly post-scarcity economy, where humankind can produce an over-abundance of all goods, the price of the goods you consume approaches zero, so the wage necessary for you to support yourself also approaches zero.

This follows naturally from the principle that money is only an intermediary between things with real value.  You trade your labor for the things you consume.  Robots don't make your labor worth any less (in real value, not in money!!)  In fact robots probably increase your productivity.

[Chuck]

I have enough time to FIRE in 2021, I hope. Perhaps not, and my position certainly won't survive much beyond.

[mozar]

the price of the goods you consume approaches zero, so the wage necessary for you to support yourself also approaches zero.

Not true for health care and rent/ mortgage. But I do see that people, especially millennials are learning to live with less. There's this article about young urban creatives, which I think is really code for "poor"
http://mashable.com/2015/06/09/post-hipster-yuccie/

[Sam E]

I've always worked in some form of customer service, so I really don't think any robots are taking my job any time soon.

[Insanity]

Millennials are learning to live with less and less because they know how to get what they need from services and computers.


And customer service is already handled by robots -  how many numbers do I need to press to talk to an adult?

[Sam E]

customer service is already handled by robots -  how many numbers do I need to press to talk to an adult?

If I already know I need to speak to a person I just spam 0 until the phone system gives up and transfers me to a human. That's exactly why I don't believe human customer service is going anywhere. Not until we have AI advanced enough to handle complex queries by voice and offer clear explanations with the ability to re-word the information in several different ways for people who can't understand it one way or another. But I think by that point I'll be more concerned with the Singularity than my job security. Computers just can't comprehend, synthesize, and communicate complex conceptual information on the fly like a human can.

[sol]

Computers just can't comprehend, synthesize, and communicate complex conceptual information on the fly like a human can.

I think the flaw in this line of reasoning is in thinking that they will have to.  I've heard this argument often, but isn't it kind of self-centered of us to suppose the future will just look like a computerized version of the past?

I think it's far more likely that when you have a problem that requires customer service, your AI and their AI will work it out and then notify you of the solution if they decide that you care to know.  I think we will have failed as a society if we're still wading through phone menus in 1000 years.  Stop worrying about whether or not a computer can do your job, and start worrying about whether or not your job will even exist in a world run by computers.

[Sam E]

Stop worrying about whether or not a computer can do your job, and start worrying about whether or not your job will even exist in a world run by computers.

I'm just pretty sure I'll be retired by the time that happens is all. I'm really not worried about either situation happening in the next 20 years.