3 White Collar Jobs Robots Are Already Mastering

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Three more jobs lost to robots. Next step, total annihilation of the human race.

We asked Ford to give us three examples of white collar jobs that are ripe for automation. Pharmacists, attorneys and one close to our hearts — journalists. All three of these professions have already been transformed in profound ways most of us may not even realize.
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I don't think we'll have to worry about robots killing us for a while. We're a good 100+ years before we even understand how the human brain works, let alone be able to mimic it in a machine. What we do right now with AI is emulate it on computers, which like emulators requires far more processing power than the hardware it originates from. Even then it's more like input to expected output.

But eventually we'll get good enough with robots that they'll replace a lot of jobs. Self driving cars, is nobody worried? Truck driver jobs will be replaced with these which never sleep and will be less likely to cause accidents. That's 3.5 million jobs. Then you have taxi cabs. There's no reason not to do this other than ruin the career of those with GEDs.

We have to embrace the fact that in the end the only jobs that are always going to exist are science and art related. We can't possibly employ everyone in the world doing this. We'll have to stop using money and move into a new direction. Maybe a credit system where you earn credit for contributing to society. We're a good 70 years before that happens.
 
Tech related as well, someone has to take care of all of these systems when they crash and burn and don;t work...
 
Ashbringer said:
But eventually we'll get good enough with robots that they'll replace a lot of jobs. Self driving cars, is nobody worried? Truck driver jobs will be replaced with these which never sleep and will be less likely to cause accidents. That's 3.5 million jobs. Then you have taxi cabs. There's no reason not to do this other than ruin the career of those with GEDs.
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You can add another 3.5 million from fast food. The right robot can cook your burger and fries.

We have to embrace the fact that in the end the only jobs that are always going to exist are science and art related. We can't possibly employ everyone in the world doing this. We'll have to stop using money and move into a new direction. Maybe a credit system where you earn credit for contributing to society. We're a good 70 years before that happens.
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Nah, I think we'll devolve into some dystopian banana republic instead. Making society better really hasn't seemed to be our priority for quite a while now.
 
"Not impossible. Inevitable. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson."

At some point we as a society will have to decide where and when to stop automation. Otherwise we will automate ourselves out of existence.
 
Ashbringer said:
I don't think we'll have to worry about robots killing us for a while. We're a good 100+ years before we even understand how the human brain works, let alone be able to mimic it in a machine.
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Nope...and then someone beat me to it...

tetris42 said:
Nah, I think we'll devolve into some dystopian banana republic instead. Making society better really hasn't seemed to be our priority for quite a while now.
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This. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Just because past efficiency/automation simply created new jobs for people to move into doesn't mean it always will, particularly with such exponential growth in computing power that in can begin to move into the knowledge-based economy, not just manual labor. We see some of it already with the growing divide in income inequality across the world.

We decide to either let all of the early movers or existing owners of this infrastructure to become the new emperors of the world and we all their serfs, or perhaps we begin to acknowledge that via computers and automation we actually can provide food, water, shelter, etc for all and begin to explore some new economic paradigm that encompasses both this fact, as well as the fact that humans are incentive-driven beasts; communism obviously won't work. Not claiming to have the answer, but it clearly isn't more unrestricted capitalism (or dumb, overbearing regulation...), but a different path that I really don't see anyone talking about or even searching for, at least anywhere in the mainstream that has a realistic chance of seeing it gain traction.
 
I can't wait till I can chat with a robots with how i'm feeling instead of a therapist/counselor.
 
With so much automation, what jobs will be available in 30 or 40 years? Will the public have money to spend on services provided by automation?

Looks bleak for a big portion of the western population if everything gets automated.

Build a car? Use the robots.
Build an office? Use the robots (Google's next HQ is going to be built by automation I heard).
Make a burger with fries? Use the robots.
Shovel manure? Definitely use the robots.

We'll all have to start making porn for money soon.
 
Hazard said:
With so much automation, what jobs will be available in 30 or 40 years? Will the public have money to spend on services provided by automation?
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Excellent question. And there is no answer other than automation cannot ultimately replace humans and that's far from certain today.
 
heatlesssun said:
Excellent question. And there is no answer other than automation cannot ultimately replace humans and that's far from certain today.
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Why not? Given time [and/or propencity for human stupidity], why couldn't we obsolete ourselves with robots replacing us?
 
People usually think that outsourcing and automation are fantastic ideas, until they themselves are replaced, lol! Then all of a sudden they become crusaders, but before that, pffft..

Personally, I think its a good idea but what I think is a bad idea is too rapid of change, no matter what that change is. Just like in mother nature, it doesn't matter if its cold or hot or dry or wet, life can thrive in any environment really, but you get mass extinctions when the change from one to the other is too fast. People can't be expected to retrain overnight when they are suddenly rendered obsolete, and so sometimes its better to slow your roll.
 
Ducman69 said:
People usually think that outsourcing and automation are fantastic ideas, until they themselves are replaced, lol! Then all of a sudden they become crusaders, but before that, pffft..

Personally, I think its a good idea but what I think is a bad idea is too rapid of change, no matter what that change is. Just like in mother nature, it doesn't matter if its cold or hot or dry or wet, life can thrive in any environment really, but you get mass extinctions when the change from one to the other is too fast. People can't be expected to retrain overnight when they are suddenly rendered obsolete, and so sometimes its better to slow your roll.
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Problem being...what do you "retrain" to?

What jobs are going to be left that are numerous enough to hope to find openings in, that aren't already outsourced, that won't get replaced by machines? There aren't many.

With Google making attempts at self-driving cars...you can bet the entire shipping industry is about to lose lots of work positions that pay reasonably well...manufacturing is all but gone (Watch How's It Made to see the lengths companies go to automate everything and fire their workers)...McD's is leading the attempts to make the first and last bastion of employment for kids and adults, the fast food industry, employee-less...

We live in a strange world. We expect everyone to find gainful productive employment...meanwhile racing to replace every job everywhere with computers or machines to save $$ on the corporate bottom line.
 
Well, in theory its about opportunity cost.

It used to be that 99.9% of people in a village had to contribute to food production, or you went hungry. That meant that society barely advanced, and few luxuries were to be had by anyone.

The more you automate, the more in theory everyone can enjoy the benefits of greater productivity to meet their needs and luxuries, and give more people time to do more creative things right than just mind numbing and back breaking labor.

But as computers become "smarter", you are going to be left with a large portion of the population that are dumber than the machines, and so they can't contribute anything. If they can't contribute, then how do they get their piece of that greater productivity pie?

You have so many stupid kids with stupid parents that just dance around and act fools in school, and yup, when all the jobs they are capable of doing are automated, they are screwed. But you can't really force people to develop their brains, so we're likely to see a big class divide.

Behold... da futurez!
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--rC3VHkI8--/1821thwuyqkayjpg.jpg
 
I'd imagine even robots can't produce stuff (except maybe some type of food paste) inexpensively enough that the perpetually unemployed could afford to buy. Then the robots will be shut down and forgotten, leaving people to provide for themselves, until someone realizes they would rather be surrounded by robots instead of filth encrusted peasants.
 
Ducman69 said:
Well, in theory its about opportunity cost.

It used to be that 99.9% of people in a village had to contribute to food production, or you went hungry. That meant that society barely advanced, and few luxuries were to be had by anyone.

The more you automate, the more in theory everyone can enjoy the benefits of greater productivity to meet their needs and luxuries, and give more people time to do more creative things right than just mind numbing and back breaking labor.
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That much you are right about.

Except we've automated just about everything...productivity has skyrocketed in our lifetimes....and no one except the CEOs have much to show for it. No luxuries are affordable, they all require credit to get now-even a microwave or a TV. Wages have been stagnant, and career paths to simply meet needs (forget luxuries) are drying up. The only way to expect to even retire is gambling ("investing") on the stock market, which itself has become a plaything of computers...where if you're rich you get your severs located physically next to the exchange and you reap $$$$$$ while everyone else is just canon fodder.

How about banking? Used to need armies of number crunchers and paper pushers the bigger the bank the more you needed. All gone. Nowadays if you work for a bank odds are you're a glorified salesperson, or just the IT guy.


This much has nothing to do with computers making people smarter or more stupid. It has to do with where we draw a line if any...because we're only just reaching the point where people with jobs aren't necessary. As bad as unemployment may or may not have been the last decade, we ain't seen nothing yet.
 
swimming pool said:
I'd imagine even robots can't produce stuff (except maybe some type of food paste) inexpensively enough that the perpetually unemployed could afford to buy. Then the robots will be shut down and forgotten, leaving people to provide for themselves, until someone realizes they would rather be surrounded by robots instead of filth encrusted peasants.
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Not necessarily shut down. Lets say that its a thousand years in the future, and I own a super smart and 100% programmed to please me robot.

I have that robot build me a robot factory to produce a thousand more just like him. Those robots build more factories to produce various goods and services. They drive me around, blowbots keep me entertained, farmbots make all my food, mexbots build my houses and mow my lawn, and maintenancebots keep everything functioning on their own.

What do I need the human peasantry for? The robots can continue to just serve me, and my wallbots and armybots will keep the peasants off me.

So we could end up with a class of people that are smarter than the robots, or at least in positions of power perhaps through inheritance, and a class of people that are less efficient than robots and thus not needed, but they continue to breed and so persist in poverty.
 
Skripka said:
This much has nothing to do with computers making people smarter or more stupid. It has to do with where we draw a line if any...because we're only just reaching the point where people with jobs aren't necessary. As bad as unemployment may or may not have been the last decade, we ain't seen nothing yet.
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Unless at some point you develop a socialist utopia, where everyone benefits from having all their basic needs taken care of via automation, at which point you have a lot of individuals that can use their time as they see fit, making art, exploring the universe, researching new technologies, and so forth. That would be a Star Trek-esque possible future.

I believe it goes against human nature, but hey, anything is possible!
 
We'll always be at odds with robots replacing humans in menial labor until there are fewer humans on the earth. Since it's not feasible to expect people to stop reproducing like rabbits, the only other scenarios tend to be catastrophic like war, disease, etc, etc. Colonizing other planets is something that could alleviate these issues, assuming there were enough people willing to leave earth...but I don't see that possibly happening anytime in the next several generations (if ever).
 
Skripka said:
This much has nothing to do with computers making people smarter or more stupid. It has to do with where we draw a line if any...because we're only just reaching the point where people with jobs aren't necessary.
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No one wants shit jobs. It's a GOOD thing the more of them we can eliminate. The problem is that if we do this on such a scale that there literally aren't enough jobs for everyone, we need some system so that everyone can still eat and have a roof over their head. Without that, society is shooting itself in the foot with a shotgun.

Unless at some point you develop a socialist utopia, where everyone benefits from having all their basic needs taken care of via automation, at which point you have a lot of individuals that can use their time as they see fit, making art, exploring the universe, researching new technologies, and so forth. That would be a Star Trek-esque possible future.

I believe it goes against human nature, but hey, anything is possible!
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Nah, only some humans. I mean hell, the Native Americans lasted a hell of a long time in pretty much a harmonious state with nature until they got wiped out by Euro diseases. It's about societal values. The problem is having sociopaths run the show like we do now. With our current system, yeah, it's pretty much impossible.
 
tetris42 said:
No one wants shit jobs.
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Virtually everyone thinks their jobs are shit jobs, including these white collar jobs, but people like being employed to support themselves. ;)

How many people here can say that if they won the current $600,000,000 Texas jackpot that they would still show up to their job? I wouldn't!!!

I'd buy some land maybe in West Virginia in the mountains, with a stable of horses, maybe a few piggies, do some falconry, play video games, host BBQ's for my neighbors now and then, and just run a ranch and have some hands to do my work and have two or three really hot "girlfriends" on call.
 
tetris42 said:
No one wants shit jobs. It's a GOOD thing the more of them we can eliminate. The problem is that if we do this on such a scale that there literally aren't enough jobs for everyone, we need some system so that everyone can still eat and have a roof over their head. Without that, society is shooting itself in the foot with a shotgun.
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Heh. If.

You do know that the world is run by billionaire sociopaths obsessed with screwing everyone for the sake of their own offshore tax-exempt bank account...right? Of course it is going to be done at as large a scale as possible to slash as many jobs as possible, and completely blind to the consequence beyond the quarterly earnings statement. Most people have shit jobs and shit benefits....or think they do, second only to not having one or either.

We in the USA especially have had stagnant wages, high productivity that has been ever increasing, very low job satisfaction, and no time off for decades....because the sociopaths in charge prefer having robots and not people.
 
And the one who controls the robots wins. We can protest the automation of society any time now.
 
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