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Close of half of all Jobs could be Automated By 2034, And 'No Government Is Prepared'

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  • 27-04-2014 1:17pm
    #1
    Zascar
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 12,778 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Very interesting article here about how with technology getting so good its going to start replacing a significant amount of jobs in the not too distant future. Bill gates was also quoted recently as saying something similar also.

    Robotics is getting so good now, they will be able to do a lot of assembly line jobs - making huge amount of Chinese workers obsolete. Self driving cars are pretty much here, buses and trucks will operate autonomously - no need for drivers in many cases. If IBM's Watson Supercomputer can beat the best guys at Jeopardy - imagine what it will be able to do when they unleash it with all the worlds information - and then a company uses it to answer all customer questions - bye bye customer service jobs. It will even act as a doctor for first line questions.

    Technology is going to bring some pretty awesome stuff in the future - but some people are going to suffer also..


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    #2
    Mr. G
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 4,621 Mod ✭✭✭✭Mr. G


    Life would be a little boring I think if you didn't work. Fine you would have lots to do, but then where is the competition? What jobs cannot be done by technology?

    Customer service for example in my opinion should say humanised. If people have issues with Eircom's IVR system, imagine what technology call centres would be like.

    To me it seems a bit too exaggerated.


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    #3
    CreepingDeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,015 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    I'm no economist, but I imagine this all hinges on being able to meet the energy demands of the technology and that it has to be cheaper than the corresponding labour cost.
    We could replace taxi drivers (fingers crossed) with automated cars, but at a huge initial investment in the technology.

    To me this seems to be targeting the "middle men" in the economy.

    Someone once said that people over estimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate in the long term. Not sure if that was Arthur C Clarke or someone else (not bothered to google it).

    Climate change is going to bring about a mass migration of people in the next 50-100 years. Imagine all of Africa moving North or South away from the equator zones and the corresponding impact on countries less drastically effected by rising temperatures.

    Food production is going to be a huge issue in the future, as is energy production, especially if they both compete for the same land areas much like bio-fuel is threatening today.

    If they get nuclear fusion working then a lot of energy can be devoted to desalinating water for drought areas and 24-7 greenhouses for food production and maybe some large scale machines to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere.

    But I'm just letting my imagination run away there a little.

    But I do see the manufacturer to consumer link being a lot closer.
    Someone creates a 3D CAD drawing of a product, and it gets printed on a 3D printer at the consumers home, or the nearest 3D printer shop for collection.
    So products become intellectual products more than physical products.


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    #4
    riclad
    Registered Users Posts: 8,184 ✭✭✭riclad


    Once This new trans pacific trade agreement go,s through millions of jobs in the west will be going to mexico, china etc where ever labour is cheap.
    The thing i find strange is corporations are spending millions designing robots,
    self driving cars, etc
    Low wages is not enough,they want to reduce the labour force.
    The big companys don,t realise if you do not pay a good wage ,
    who will have money to buy your products.
    so who is gonna be left to buy their products in the west.
    Many young people in the usa are not buying cars,anymore
    as they have little job security ,or faith in the future ,
    with large student debts to pay.
    I think it,ll be a long time before i go to a supermarket ,and there,ll be robots stacking
    shelves or counting up my grocerys.

    Maybe politicians take no action on climate change, cos who thinks 50 years ahead,?
    irish politicians think maybe 3 years ahead ,to the next election.

    IT, would probably be more expensive to put a robot in mcdonalds than pay
    someone 8 euro an hour to do the job.


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    #5
    CreepingDeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,015 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    riclad wrote: »
    I think it,ll be a long time before i go to a supermarket ,and there,ll be robots stacking shelves or counting up my grocerys.

    You don't get it, there won't be a supermarket store to visit.

    At the moment the likes of Tesco have online shopping.
    You select your groceries online and they have dedicated picking teams to collect your order from the shelves, and drivers to deliver it.

    Now imagine that there's no physical shop at all, a sort of Argos for groceries, only they get delivered to your door.
    That's the thing that people underestimate.

    I'm 41 and remember when we didn't have a phone in our house.

    Imagine when 3d printing and 3d tailoring take over.
    When you don't go to some store for clothes because you have scanned in the 3D contours of your body and shops can manufacture your clothes perfectly for you.

    No more physical shops at all and you end up with localised 3D printing and 3D tailoring centres which deliver direct.


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    #6
    Frank Lee Midere
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    CreepingDeath wrote: »
    You don't get it, there won't be a supermarket store to visit.

    At the moment the likes of Tesco have online shopping.
    You select your groceries online and they have dedicated picking teams to collect your order from the shelves, and drivers to deliver it.

    Now imagine that there's no physical shop at all, a sort of Argos for groceries, only they get delivered to your door.
    That's the thing that people underestimate.

    I'm 41 and remember when we didn't have a phone in our house.

    Imagine when 3d printing and 3d tailoring take over.
    When you don't go to some store for clothes because you have scanned in the 3D contours of your body and shops can manufacture your clothes perfectly for you.

    No more physical shops at all and you end up with localised 3D printing and 3D tailoring centres which deliver direct.

    Unless you are a shopper who never changes his choices shopping online is more difficult for groceries than going to a shop. ( it also exists already). And would involve vast refrigerated warehouses. Not going to happen.

    And 3D printing is just plastics and moulds and stuff. We've had that for centuries.


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    #7
    riclad
    Registered Users Posts: 8,184 ✭✭✭riclad


    Yeah, in the sixtys they thought we,d travel to work by jetpack in the year 2000.
    Theres 1000s of people in ireland that still don,t have broadband , or smartphones.
    SO in ten years time we,ll all have large 3d printers in our home connected to the web.
    I doubt it.
    Alot of people never buy anything online,
    they like going shopping.
    It,s like building your own pc,
    i like building pc,s but 95 per cent of people just buy a laptop,or a tablet .
    I dont want to wait in all day for deliverys,
    I like going to a shop and browsing.


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    #8
    Frank Lee Midere
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    riclad wrote: »
    Yeah, in the sixtys they thought we,d travel to work by jetpack in the year 2000.
    Theres 1000s of people in ireland that still don,t have broadband , or smartphones.
    SO in ten years time we,ll all have large 3d printers in our home connected to the web.
    I doubt it.
    Alot of people never buy anything online,
    they like going shopping.
    It,s like building your own pc,
    i like building pc,s but 95 per cent of people just buy a laptop,or a tablet .
    I dont want to wait in all day for deliverys,
    I like going to a shop and browsing.

    Yeah. I know Tesco do this but for many companies the delivery window is from half to a whole working day, but picking a time would be more useful.


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    #9
    CreepingDeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,015 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    Frank Lee Midere wrote: »
    Unless you are a shopper who never changes his choices shopping online is more difficult for groceries than going to a shop. ( it also exists already). And would involve vast refrigerated warehouses. Not going to happen.

    Every supermarket already has these "vast refrigerated warehouses" you speak of.
    Frank Lee Midere wrote: »
    And 3D printing is just plastics and moulds and stuff. We've had that for centuries.

    Yes, and mass produced.
    So it involves a large setup cost ( making injection moulds etc ), then low cost to make them in bulk.
    But the future is customized models, being able to run small batch runs of custom designs so easily, with a small setup cost and higher cost to make them in bulk.
    Frank Lee Midere wrote: »
    Yeah. I know Tesco do this but for many companies the delivery window is from half to a whole working day, but picking a time would be more useful.

    Some pick your order and you collect it in your own time.

    But the point is that if enough people regularly do grocery shopping online there could be an online-only shop in the future, saving on costly supermarket buildings, insurance, shoplifting, car parks, staff etc.
    Simple menial jobs can be moved to a more high tech environment of online ordering and delivery.

    One of the classic jobs I predict will go is that of a librarian.
    If books become digitized there's no need for buildings full of paperbacks.


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    #10
    Overheal
    Registered Users Posts: 83,278 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Invariably, if you eliminate jobs with automation, it frees up the populace to do other things

    3000 years ago, we spent our lives farming. Better technology came along and castes and artisans popped up.

    In the 1950s we went to the moon.

    Automate our consumerism and you simply pave the way for the world economy to take on more lucrative tasks.


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    #11
    Zascar
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 12,778 Mod ✭✭✭✭Zascar


    These are excellent

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXQrbxD9_Ng


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMF-Z74C1QE


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    #12
    c_man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,436 ✭✭✭c_man


    riclad wrote: »
    Yeah, in the sixtys they thought we,d travel to work by jetpack in the year 2000.

    Yeah and others had this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYgdX2PxyQ


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    #13
    Wetbench4
    Registered Users Posts: 1,229 ✭✭✭Wetbench4


    CreepingDeath wrote: »
    Imagine when 3d printing and 3d tailoring take over.
    When you don't go to some store for clothes because you have scanned in the 3D contours of your body and shops can manufacture your clothes perfectly for you.

    No more physical shops at all and you end up with localised 3D printing and 3D tailoring centres which deliver direct.

    I can't wait to get on the pirate bay in 20 years and utorrent some new shoes:P
    Only joking, piracy is bad.


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