The Economist "Effect of technology on tomorrow’s jobs immense - no country is ready"

[zephyrprime]

Then why haven't all bank tellers been laid off? Or cashiers? The technology to utterly replace them not only exists but is in place. Yet it has been implemented on a limited scale. Why?

Because the technology is NOT capable of utterly replacing them. Probably 80% of tellers have already been laid off. Go to an old bank. You will see many many teller windows at the desk which are always mostly empty. This is because they used to actually need this many tellers back before atms and computer transactions. If you had a time machine and could go back to the 70's, you'd see them. And the population in the 70's was about a third less than it is now so the growth in population hides part of the effect in this particular case. As for cashiers, the self checkout line requires more work from the buyer so that is why they haven't taken over yet. It's not a real robot cashier yet.

 

[Hacp]

The ultimate goal is to have no one working and to have machines to everything for us. Then, we would achieve true utopia, provided by capitalism. However, that goal is still far beyond reach. Until we get a few orders of magnitude above Star Wars technology, we won't be able to even come close to the ideal state. Capitalism, however, is the best tool to get us there.

 

[Hacp]

Because the technology is NOT capable of utterly replacing them. Probably 80% of tellers have already been laid off. Go to an old bank. You will see many many teller windows at the desk which are always mostly empty. This is because they used to actually need this many tellers back before atms and computer transactions. If you had a time machine and could go back to the 70's, you'd see them. And the population in the 70's was about a third less than it is now so the growth in population hides part of the effect in this particular case. As for cashiers, the self checkout line requires more work from the buyer so that is why they haven't taken over yet. It's not a real robot cashier yet.

The real self checkout would be some sort of vending machine contraption.

 

[Jaskalas]

How humanity adapts our society to ever advancing technology is going to be the story of this century. Some hard questions of how the economy should operate are going to need to be asked. I personally think automation should be embraced and its fruits passed on to everyone.

Nothing about increasing automation or having more college educated people should ever be considered a 'problem.' It's only a problem if you cling to the past and are unable or unwilling to adapt to a changing reality.

The changing reality is that not everyone can be employed. It has already begun to a minor degree but can only accelerate from here.

Society must transition into providing for those who do not work, much to the complaint of Conservatives. It may suggest that an inflationary driven economy is no longer suitable. We need a cost of living the government can afford to provide, which can be achieved by using automation to slash prices.

We face a huge psychological problem. We're all trained that more is better. That inflation is king. That prices must go up. When in reality, the best accommodation for this new world of jobless people is for the basic needs to have no price. That we make them as cheap as possible and provide them for free.

The only way to humanely move forward with automation is for people to be able to live jobless. For an entire society to be geared towards that end. We're not there yet, but as unemployment goes higher in the next several decades this necessity will press itself upon us and we will either adapt and survive, or descend into rioting and chaos.

 

[Abraxas]

The real self checkout would be some sort of vending machine contraption.

Might be one avenue, but now we are starting to see changes that render even that obsolete.

http://www.businessweek.com/article...will-finally-be-the-year-of-the-online-grocer

The future could be one of fully automated warehouses loading self-driving delivery vehicles up to and potentially including drones straight to your door for any product you care to buy. Brick and mortar shopping in general is becoming increasingly superfluous.

 

[Doppel]

The changing reality is that not everyone can be employed. It has already begun to a minor degree but can only accelerate from here.

Agree. Our society now tolerates lifelong unemployment from people who are not physically unable to work. We just let them carry on cranking out kids on social assistance. It's not a great life, but they have a roof over their head, food, basic levels of idiotic entertainment.

Automation will reduce labor needs. To some degree automation allows the same person to do more, and thus the business need not lay people off. If they can make more they can sell more. However, in other cases there isn't really a need for more supply. The market is saturated, and so automation simply decreases head-count. Think about a mcdonalds for instance. If it can automate most of its local food production, it still can't increase sales (even if it were much cheaper it still cannot infinitely increase demand), and so head count goes down.

Robots are increasingly cheap and able to replace workers. Think about automated cashiers. They suck now and we all know it. Now, picture an automated cashier that involves you simply putting all your food onto the conveyor belt and a camera takes a picture and competently identifies what to get and estimates its weight, etc. Now everything is done immediately and you need only a bagger; no longer a cashier.

People get smarter at a rate slower than machines do.

 

[Engineer]

Robots are increasingly cheap and able to replace workers. Think about automated cashiers. They suck now and we all know it. Now, picture an automated cashier that involves you simply putting all your food onto the conveyor belt and a camera takes a picture and competently identifies what to get and estimates its weight, etc. Now everything is done immediately and you need only a bagger; no longer a cashier.

People get smarter at a rate slower than machines do.

Why do that. Just put a small RFID on each product and as you leave the store, the entire cart is just charged to you. Bag as you go and scan as you leave. Done.

 

[Abraxas]

Why do that. Just put a small RFID on each product and as you leave the store, the entire cart is just charged to you. Bag as you go and scan as you leave. Done.

Again though, why assume brick and mortar at all? Drone delivery is already something Amazon has on the table, along with grocery delivery, etc. This might be a ways off but looking more long term it doesn't seem to me that the cashier is going to be obsolete so much as the concept of going to the store to buy something will.

 

[Hugo Drax]

In the future robots and computers will do all the work and us humans will live a life of luxury served by our robot slaves.

 

[Jhhnn]

Sounds peachy, guys. Except... How do people get the money to buy the products robots & offshore workers produce when they have no jobs? No ownership from which to profit? What's the point of production if nobody can buy it?

Benefit to the ownership class seems obvious, but what about everybody else?

 

[Abraxas]

Sounds peachy, guys. Except... How do people get the money to buy the products robots & offshore workers produce when they have no jobs? No ownership from which to profit? What's the point of production if nobody can buy it?

Benefit to the ownership class seems obvious, but what about everybody else?

Even that is temporary, though. Most businesses rely on some kind of demand and when it comes to a point where only major shareholders have any money to spend, those businesses are going to cave. I firmly believe we, as a society, need to reevaluate and soon just how we view ownership, capital, labor, and what it means to make a living in a world rapidly moving towards human commercial activity largely becoming superfluous.

Before it gets that far though, to the point of full automation, you are going to start to see massive unemployment figures that society is completely unequipped to deal with.

 

[BoberFett]

Sounds peachy, guys. Except... How do people get the money to buy the products robots & offshore workers produce when they have no jobs? No ownership from which to profit? What's the point of production if nobody can buy it?

Benefit to the ownership class seems obvious, but what about everybody else?

Try reading the thread, numnuts.