Chart That Tells You When Your Job Will Be Done By A Robot

DigitalGriffin said:
Any time you use an automated tool it's considered a form of automation as it repeats a repetitive task.

But you think aspects of your job aren't repetitive enough to be replaced?

Running electrical lines?
Drilling holes for lines?
Hooking up a panel?
An outlet so far off the ground every so many feet?
You read electrical schematics to determine what goes where?


These are all forms of repetitive task which robots and computers are good at.

I don't say that to be an ass or shove it in your face. But you need to rethink your reality. Boston Dynamics does some neat work. But if you seen some of the automated learning algorithms I'm working on....
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Yeah, that's all doable by robots in a perfect environment. Now try having robots doing that in a 40+ year old building and working around a production environment minimizing disruptions. Oh, and when it comes across a junction box that isn't wired to whatever the current spec happens to be and then needs to figure the whole thing out? Yeah, good luck with that.

mesyn191 seems to think the timeline for this stuff isn't 20+ years, honestly I'd say 20 years is being generous. The problem isn't the machines, the problem is the AI.
 
I think it'll happen sooner because you don't need AI for this stuff.

You need moderate to strong PI (pseudo intelligence), decent programming, decent precision affordable motors, and affordable high quality sensors. PI's don't actually have to "know" anything and are something that scientists and some programmers know how to do right now.

Almost all of this stuff exists now and will almost certainly exist in the next 5-10yr. The thing that actually needs the most development are the sensors. The current sensors that the robots have to "see" its environment or work space are not very good in general, and no I'm not just talking about cameras. Or at least not the simple cameras they currently have to work with.

There have been some major improvements on all this stuff in the last few years, with most of it going into stuff like self driving cars as near as I can tell, but its all still very expensive. When it gets lots cheaper is when you'll suddenly see these robots pop up in industry.

For fast joints and such they'll be task dedicated machines in the back making the burgers, fries, sushi, or coffee and will probably be kept out of view from customers.
 
Everything can be done by machine, it really comes down to cost. Machines can have better access to information, sensors that let them see, hear, smell far better than humans. Machines won't half-ass a job to get out the door by 5pm as well.

Face it, if most people fear illegal immigrants taking their jobs for less money, imagine what robots would do. If you think you are one of those people that could never be replaced, you are probably in the same job for many years and believe the company wouldn't survive without you either.
 
The price I saw several years ago for automation to make sense was for manufacturing jobs that paid ~$21/hr or more. The robots back then, and now, are far simpler, more expensive, and less able then what future robots will be able to do.
 
I'm not worried about robots taking jobs of anything that requires any sort of inference for a very long time.

Merc1138's example of working on the electrical system in a 20+ year old building is a perfect example of this. There is no way a robot would beat someone who had even a year's experience working on those types of systems.

A bus mechanic robot is also a long way off. You could probably get a robot to change the oil in one type of bus pretty well. I don't think it would have a chance diagnosing a mechanical problem faster than someone who had a couple year's experience working on any sort of similar bus.

Amazon still has not figured out how to remove people from its warehouses - and even that job requires little inference.

Unless something drastically changes in AI and machine learning, robots will be the most basic employee, at best acting as a go-for or fetching the requested wrench out of the toolbox.
 
ruffbytes said:
I'm not worried about robots taking jobs of anything that requires any sort of inference for a very long time.

Merc1138's example of working on the electrical system in a 20+ year old building is a perfect example of this. There is no way a robot would beat someone who had even a year's experience working on those types of systems.

A bus mechanic robot is also a long way off. You could probably get a robot to change the oil in one type of bus pretty well. I don't think it would have a chance diagnosing a mechanical problem faster than someone who had a couple year's experience working on any sort of similar bus.

Amazon still has not figured out how to remove people from its warehouses - and even that job requires little inference.

Unless something drastically changes in AI and machine learning, robots will be the most basic employee, at best acting as a go-for or fetching the requested wrench out of the toolbox.
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Well specifically about that warehouse thing, you have a properly laid out warehouse with everything in it being standardized. You're not going to have that in maintenance/upgrade jobs like the electrical or HVAC work that I mentioned. You can have all of the sensors, cameras, and so on that you want, but if the robot isn't capable of determining how some 40+ year old junction panel is wired when attempting to add another 30 amp circuit to the other side of the building... it's useless. It's going to take AI to work around everything to get that job done, and good AI(that won't burn the building down). The neural network trial and error type stuff is not going to be acceptable on a job site where you wait a week for the robot to learn how things are wired up(if you think that blueprints/schematics/drawings are going to be 100% correct, as nice as it would be if they were, you're kidding yourself).

Automating fabrication of duct work for new construction that can be based off of the drawings, sure. Automating duct work installation in an upgrade for a decades old building? Not a chance without a competent and fast AI. As much as people like to talk up advancements, we're still having demos shown to us of robots learning how to walk around. That's relatively simple compared to actual skilled labor.
 
nutzo said:
Sure, lets pay people not to work and give them free health insurance to help them recover from all their bad life choices. What could go wrong?

Even if you taxed the rich at 90% of their income (even including their foreign income and capital gains), you wouldn't be able to pay for this. And after the 1st year, most the rich wouldn't have much income to tax, because why work so hard if the government is going to take most of it.
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In this scenario, virtually all work is done by machines that can, by and large, fix themselves. In that world, people will pursue their passion and not worry about money, because essentially any work people do they are doing for pleasure and whatever they need is provided by these machines.

Is that realistic? No, but that is the scenario that's been described. I'm not even sure if you'd need much taxes levied, since we'd have machines gathering raw materials, turning them into items that we need and delivering them to us. They'd fix the car, the roads and themselves. Essentially it's a benevolent skynet.
 
Funny how apparently I am much more cynical than most with regards to Artificial Intelligence (AI). In essence we are talking about software and despite the flaws and bugs in software people are willing to assume replacing people with software controlled machines?

People who are dependent upon investors for financing may wish to glorify the state of AI but we are still a long, long way from ex machina...
 
mesyn191 said:
What could go right you mean? The alternative is letting a huge portion of the country become poor and desperate permanently which historically isn't the sort of thing that tends to end well.


A UHS is cheaper than current healthcare in the US (rest of the world pays about half what we do), reduce military spending some by cutting waste and closing the revolving door between the military and weapons manufacturers, and raise the effective tax rate 20% for the rich/corps as well as closing some corporate loop holes and boom problem solved.

None of this is impossible. And the rich will still work because they'll still earn enough money to stay rich.
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You could possibly do the 20% hike on the rich. Raising taxes on corporations will just lead to them leaving the U.S. Our corporate taxes are already among the 5 highest. There's also the argument that increasing corporate taxes is really a tax on the consumer, since it will be passed on to the customer.

Regardless, all of that is irrelevant to in this world where robots do virtually everything.
 
we need UBI and we need it before the bread lines start
 
nilepez said:
There's also the argument that increasing corporate taxes is really a tax on the consumer, since it will be passed on to the customer.
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The top tax rate is high but the effective tax rate is very low for the US right now. Its the effective tax rate that matters. Also its profits that are taxed not expenses so unless corps wanted to maintain or increase profit levels dramatically, which usually isn't possible, then no costs would be passed on to the consumer.

nilepez said:
Regardless, all of that is irrelevant to in this world where robots do virtually everything.
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Robots will probably never do virtually everything short of us developing Star Trek tech. They will however be able to do a whole lot. Enough to make a significant minority permanently unemployed so yes this stuff is all relevant.
 
mesyn191 said:
The top tax rate is high but the effective tax rate is very low for the US right now. Its the effective tax rate that matters. Also its profits that are taxed not expenses so unless corps wanted to maintain or increase profit levels dramatically, which usually isn't possible, then no costs would be passed on to the consumer.
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If profits are taxed at 50% more than they currently are (i.e. 39% top rate becomes 49%), then profits are cut, unless they pass that cost on, and it will be passed on. Look at the cost of airline tickets when fuel costs went up. That cost was passed on to us.
 
MrPatate said:
I'm an electrician, the only way I could be replaced is if/when robots become identical to human in every aspect (physically and mentally). I'm not really scared for now ;)
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True there. I used to be one, still miss it sometimes haha
 
nilepez said:
If profits are taxed at 50% more than they currently are (i.e. 39% top rate becomes 49%), then profits are cut, unless they pass that cost on, and it will be passed on. Look at the cost of airline tickets when fuel costs went up. That cost was passed on to us.
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Expenses in general are only passed on to the consumer when it is possible to do so and even then aren't necessarily passed along on a 1 to 1 basis. If they try to raise the prices too much they'll actually decrease profits more than a tax increase would since less people will buy the product. Can't price yourself out of the market and stay in business.

Your problem is you're using zero sum thinking and the economy doesn't work like that on a macro scale. If it did then there would never be any growth since every input to the economy would have the exact same output.
 
MrPatate said:
I'm an electrician, the only way I could be replaced is if/when robots become identical to human in every aspect (physically and mentally). I'm not really scared for now ;)
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I'm a Journeyman Lineman and was just thinking the exact same thing, lol.
 
mesyn191 said:
Expenses in general are only passed on to the consumer when it is possible to do so and even then aren't necessarily passed along on a 1 to 1 basis. If they try to raise the prices too much they'll actually decrease profits more than a tax increase would since less people will buy the product. Can't price yourself out of the market and stay in business.

Your problem is you're using zero sum thinking and the economy doesn't work like that on a macro scale. If it did then there would never be any growth since every input to the economy would have the exact same output.
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Ok, so you increase your prices to make up for the increase in taxes... customers go to the competition. Your competition ends up paying more in taxes and increases prices to make up for the taxes, loses customers who move on... Yeah, that doesn't work on a macro scale either unless you expect everyone to kill their margins to eat the taxes, which won't happen since they'll just move their operation elsewhere(this already happens).

Getting back to the automation(job being done by a robot) topic, something people seem to forget is that as fast as technology seems to advance, people were afraid of losing factory jobs to automation 100 years ago, it hasn't happened yet. Obviously there are less manual labor positions, but even Tesla has what 3,000 or so employees in their vehicle factor working along side a ton of robots to get cars made. It's not like Tesla upgraded 50+ years of machinery gradually, they went for the high tech solutions right off the bat and still can't eliminate the need for people in a factory. And consider that they only build a handful of different models anyway.

We still can't fully automate assembling a vehicle that was designed to be assembled by robots, and you guys are talking about skilled trades being automated in just a few years? Not a chance.
 
Merc1138 said:
Ok, so ....
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There is no "competition" per se since everyone will get the same taxes if they do business in the country causing prices to largely even out over time just as they do now. "Killing their margins" is hyperbole plain and simple, they'd still make plenty of money, and there are tons of things that simply can't be outsourced or evaded via financial shenanigans. Even then if protectionist laws are re-enacted (they were slowly chipped away at in the 80's and 90's by Reagan and Clinton in the name of free trade) outsourcing and those financial shenanigans would no longer be possible.

Merc1138 said:
Getting back to the automation.... people were afraid of losing factory jobs to automation 100 years ago, it hasn't happened yet.
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Yes it did.
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The US is also still 2nd in the world when it comes to actually producing stuff to, and not by a huge amount either, despite the meme that nothing is made in the US anymore. The reason why production didn't drop, and is actually still going up, despite employment in manufacturing going down is because of the level of automation available.

Manufacturing is becoming almost like farming, where once a huge portion of the population was involved in it out of necessity but due to automation you only need a relative few people now.

The future will not be exactly like the past since the technical capabilties of the new robots will be so far ahead of anything before them + the political and legal environment has changed drastically. There was a time when it was considered a done deal that eventually the 40hr work week would go the way of the Dodo as tech improved productivity and wages rose yet now such talk is unheard of and talking of it in a political theater is considered career suicide even among "commie socialist" Dems. That attitude will have to change among the politicians if things are to improve or things will continue to get worse for the non-rich as their wages and wealth disappear due to a lack of jobs.

Merc1138 said:
We still can't fully automate assembling a vehicle that was designed to be assembled by robots, and you guys are talking about skilled trades being automated in just a few years? Not a chance.
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One of the more ironic things about the improvements in PI and symbols processing is that over the last few years one of the professions that required the most training and skill and had the highest wages have been decimated: lawyers. The "bread n' butter" part of the business that used to be required to do by a person is now largely automated away and there are TONS of lawyers who graduated over the last 4-6 yr who can't find work anymore but are still saddled with huge law school debt now.

This was written by lawyers for people interested in becoming lawyers, and while its kinda old, its still a reasonably accurate assessment of what its like to try and become a lawyer for the last few years as well as your chances of doing well in that profession now.

Now not all skilled or semi skilled labor will ever go away, even if we developed true AI's, but far more of it is and it'll happen far faster than you're expecting.
 
We're better off as a country by exploiting comparative advantage and not oversupplied with farmers and assemblers. I'm not saying we need to shed all manufacturing of course.

It never makes sense to go against comparative advantage. The harsh reality is that people need to adapt or die.
 
Adapt? How?! There flat out won't be as many jobs and many aren't capable of retraining to be a programmer, scientist, engineer, or competent artist.

Even if they were that'd just create a race to the bottom in wages for those careers since programmers, scientists, engieers, and competent artists would become as common as burger flippers with wages to match!

In a future where robot labor permanently displaces a large minority of the population from the work place there is no compensation or adaptation possible for those out of work!! That is why govt. support is needed for society at that point.
 
mesyn191 said:
There is no "competition" per se since everyone will get the same taxes if they do business in the country causing prices to largely even out over time just as they do now. "Killing their margins" is hyperbole plain and simple, they'd still make plenty of money, and there are tons of things that simply can't be outsourced or evaded via financial shenanigans. Even then if protectionist laws are re-enacted (they were slowly chipped away at in the 80's and 90's by Reagan and Clinton in the name of free trade) outsourcing and those financial shenanigans would no longer be possible.
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What, so you'd let the government dictate prices for everything? And what do you mean "there is no competition"? There either is, or there isn't, and even in your own post you said there was.

mesyn191 said:
Yes it did.

The US is also still 2nd in the world when it comes to actually producing stuff to, and not by a huge amount either, despite the meme that nothing is made in the US anymore. The reason why production didn't drop, and is actually still going up, despite employment in manufacturing going down is because of the level of automation available.

Manufacturing is becoming almost like farming, where once a huge portion of the population was involved in it out of necessity but due to automation you only need a relative few people now.
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Yet factory jobs still exist even in factories that are heavily automated, where the place was designed to have as much automation as possible. You can't claim the jobs don't exist when they clearly do.

mesyn191 said:
The future will not be exactly like the past since the technical capabilties of the new robots will be so far ahead of anything before them + the political and legal environment has changed drastically. There was a time when it was considered a done deal that eventually the 40hr work week would go the way of the Dodo as tech improved productivity and wages rose yet now such talk is unheard of and talking of it in a political theater is considered career suicide even among "commie socialist" Dems. That attitude will have to change among the politicians if things are to improve or things will continue to get worse for the non-rich as their wages and wealth disappear due to a lack of jobs.


One of the more ironic things about the improvements in PI and symbols processing is that over the last few years one of the professions that required the most training and skill and had the highest wages have been decimated: lawyers. The "bread n' butter" part of the business that used to be required to do by a person is now largely automated away and there are TONS of lawyers who graduated over the last 4-6 yr who can't find work anymore but are still saddled with huge law school debt now.

This was written by lawyers for people interested in becoming lawyers, and while its kinda old, its still a reasonably accurate assessment of what its like to try and become a lawyer for the last few years as well as your chances of doing well in that profession now.

Now not all skilled or semi skilled labor will ever go away, even if we developed true AI's, but far more of it is and it'll happen far faster than you're expecting.
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I never said it wasn't happening, but I seriously have to wonder if you understand what a skilled trade is compared to repetitive factory tasks replaced by machines.The best argument you could have made, but didn't, would be about skilled labor in positions for things like craftsmanship(engravers and such) that have been drastically eliminated across the board. I don't even know why you're bringing up lawyers since that's not a blue collar skilled trade like the rest of us are discussing.

The simple fact is, whether you like it or not factory jobs still exist even though 100 years of paranoia about them being eliminated due to automation. Why you're even focusing on factory jobs doesn't even make sense, since you seem to fail to understand that jobs exist outside of factories, fast food, and white collar office jobs(which funnily enough, don't end up saddling students with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and are actually in demand).
 
mesyn191 said:
Adapt? How?! There flat out won't be as many jobs and many aren't capable of retraining to be a programmer, scientist, engineer, or competent artist.

Even if they were that'd just create a race to the bottom in wages for those careers since programmers, scientists, engieers, and competent artists would become as common as burger flippers with wages to match!

In a future where robot labor permanently displaces a large minority of the population from the work place there is no compensation or adaptation possible for those out of work!! That is why govt. support is needed for society at that point.
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I don't pretend to know what industries will be in demand at any given time. But those.

Your fear has rendered you hysterical to logic and reason. Stop relying on den mother to save you.
 
Merc1138 said:
What, so you'd let the government dictate prices for everything? And what do you mean "there is no competition"?...... You can't claim the jobs don't exist when they clearly do. .......I never said it wasn't happening.........but I seriously have to wonder if you understand what a skilled trade is......The simple fact is, whether you like it or not factory jobs still exist
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You're heavily misreading what I'm saying. Those were scare quotes meant to show I was talking metaphorically. And we're talking about tax rates not prices so I don't know how you'd think I was talking about price controls which are a whole other subject entirely. Tax rates are already set by the govt. and are progressive so large and small corps, as well as the rich, would get taxed roughly equal level based on their profit levels or income. If the tax rates work out to roughly equal there is no competing possible.

You're misreading me pretty badly again. You said: "people were afraid of losing factory jobs to automation 100 years ago, it hasn't happened yet." I showed they did lose factory jobs and didn't say anything about all factory jobs being eliminated. I even went on to mention that only a relative few people were needed now in manufacturing and made a comparison to farming later on in the same post.

I also didn't state that you said it'd never happen, just that I disagreed with your timeline and that the changes in the work force and tech would happen way faster then you thought. You're strawmanning me there.

Also as was mentioned earlier on in the thread when talking about mechanics: they'll just change the way things are produced or put together to eliminate the labor. Why hire an engraver when you can "print" designs in metal or just use a CnC machine or laser to do it instead?

You're also shifting goal posts and strawmanning me again with your comment about "factory jobs still existing". That was never in question. Of course they'll still exist...they'll just be a tiny minority of the work force and will employ FAR fewer people then than they do today or did in the past. And those people probably won't be able to find other work due to the automation.

And lawyers were brought up because a jobs were being discussed, not just blue collar work. Whether its in a factory, fast food joint, or a law firm any job eliminated due to automation is a valid example that counters what you were stating before hand.

The constant misreading, goal post shifting, and strawmanning you're doing now suggests you've got some extreme bias on this issue for whatever reason. I suggest you read and respond to what I say rather than what you think I say because you're not good at this whole mind reading through the internet thing or whatever it is you're trying to do.
 
DukenukemX said:
What's the difference between reading the info off wikipedia vs going to a library and reading books? The answer is time.

As far as automation, be afraid of A.I. Mark Zuckerberg announced that he's going to try and make his own AI, and Silicon Valley seems to be advancing in this area extremely fast. I'd say within 3 years that most desk jobs like accounting will be replaced with AI. I'd like to say lawyers but knowing the American legal system it'll take another 10 years or more. The only reason it would take longer is because it'll take that long before courts will accept Adobe Lawyer Premier.
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As long as lawyers write the laws, they will not be replaced by robots or automation because they can simply make it illegal.
 
Retronym said:
I don't pretend to know what industries will be in demand at any given time. Your fear has rendered you hysterical to logic and reason.
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Which industries are in demand doesn't matter since the jobs won't be there.

And fear has nothing to do with it. Its a fact if you don't have money right now in the US you're screwed and that is the situation more and more people will face over time, through no fault of their own, due to automation of the work force.
 
damicatz said:
As long as lawyers write the laws, they will not be replaced by robots or automation because they can simply make it illegal.
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Much like in farming and soon to be manufacturing not everyone will lose their job. They don't need to out law anything. The job market will just shrink by itself until its only a special few who get the positions.
 
You have to call it long pork. Helps dehumanize the cattle you'll be feeding on and maintain your precarious grip on sanity.
 
mesyn191 said:
Which industries are in demand doesn't matter since the jobs won't be there.

And fear has nothing to do with it. Its a fact if you don't have money right now in the US you're screwed and that is the situation more and more people will face over time, through no fault of their own, due to automation of the work force.
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You're wrong.

If people are pushed out of jobs due to automation, the markets have a way of assigning that human capital to industries not automated. It really doesn't matter how great AI and industry get, there will simply always be SOMETHING to do.
 
You're essentially making a faith based argument over economics. Just because huge numbers of people suddenly lose their jobs doesn't mean jobs will be automagically made by the market at large.

Also the markets don't assign anybody. Also businesses in general hate hiring people and only do it when absolutely necessary from a financial perspective and not the goodness of their hearts.
 
I'm not talking about people getting jobs because it's the nice thing to do.

I have history on my side.
 
Did large amounts of highly productive robotics that cost less than most human labor exist in the past?

No. So you don't have history on your side.
 
You going to address what I said or complain some more about being disagreed with on a discussion forum?

If you don't want to discuss things or can't cope with disagreement why post at all?
 
I don't feel like teaching kindergarten level economics right now.

You win.
 
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