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Your Thoughts? - "Automation Could Wipe Out Almost Half of All Jobs in 20 Years" (1 Viewer)

Part of my job is replacing unskilled labor with automation, we've got lots of time.  Unskilled labor is very inexpensive, robots can be expensive but the cost is in the programming and support.

 
lumpy19 said:
Part of my job is replacing unskilled labor with automation, we've got lots of time.  Unskilled labor is very inexpensive, robots can be expensive but the cost is in the programming and support.
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Yeah this is how it usually goes

someone comes up with a proposal to spend X to eliminate Y workers.  Payback probably 1-3 years

then the proposal gets up through finance and C-level and nobody wants to invest in the upfront capital because that would cause them to underperform that quarter and it might affect their bonus

 
Da Guru said:
How would you handle it if you were still in the boat business?   Say you had robots that would build boats faster, cleaner,safer, more efficient but instead of 35 employees now you only need 7-8 to oversee operations. Then you have to tell your employees.  Sorry, this is the wave of the future?

I have seen this happen at auto suppliers where a robot can s make car seats and dashboards 24-7 and never get tired, hurt or call in sick.
They replace wholes shifts of human labor.  Just need routine maintenance and a person to make sure thing stay on track.
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That's exactly the situation I know people are in. I remember as far back as 20 years ago, Yamaha was using robots in their manufacturing. I hated it. 

Partly because for me, employing people was such a giant part of why I wanted to be in business. 

If I were still there today, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have to consider it. At some point it becomes a question of remaining in business vs going out of business. It's like a lay off in a recession. A few people lose their job so the company stays alive for the majority of the employees. But the hope was always to rehire anyone laid off like that. And we did. 

My gut feel is I'd fight the robotic stuff super hard. But it feels to me it's eventually a losing battle. 

And on a real world practical level, those people being replaced by robots are having a tough time. I know the theoretical talk about society benefitting as a whole and more time to do what you want all that. That to me sounds like pie in the sky. When you're looking in the eyes of a 45 year old husband with limited marketable skills and a wife and 2 kids at home with bills to pay that are due that week. The theory talk of a utopian future doesn't sit well with him. 

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
People like to play video games.  It seems like a benefit if people can do something they like (video games) instead of something they don’t like (working).
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Some people like to use drugs too.  If people use the newfound extra time to mostly do things that only benefit themselves (drugs, video games etc) then society won't feel the full benefit from the increased productivity from automation.  However, if the result is an increased sharing of ideas and information, then society as a whole could undergo another renaissance--a modern renaissance.

 
chet said:
Some people like to use drugs too.  If people use the newfound extra time to mostly do things that only benefit themselves (drugs, video games etc) then society won't feel the full benefit from the increased productivity from automation.  However, if the result is an increased sharing of ideas and information, then society as a whole could undergo another renaissance--a modern renaissance.
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You go right to drugs. Video games is more like watching TV. Guess people better cancel their Netflix and Hulu accounts too.

 
Interesting.

My quote today from the Daily Stoic was from Marcus Aurelius:

"That which isn't good for the hive, isn't good for the bee."

 
Joe Bryant said:
:lmao:  I hear you. But this is more life stuff. Politics became ruined when outrage and personalities became king. This is a philosophical / practical topic I think we can discuss here. 
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The solutions, one way or another, are going to be political. So I think you should at least start the same thread in the PSF. 

 
Insein said:
You go right to drugs. Video games is more like watching TV. Guess people better cancel their Netflix and Hulu accounts too.
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Both the straw man and slippery slope fallacies in less than 25 words.  Congrats.

 
Could probably automate at least half the jobs in my department today if management would let us.....and get better results

 
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Slapdash said:
Could probably automate at least half the jobs in my department today if management would let us.....and get better results
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That's another angle. And truth. This isn't always a nefarious mean old greedy boss thing. There are lots of jobs where machines can do a better job. 

 
chet said:
Both the straw man and slippery slope fallacies in less than 25 words.  Congrats.
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Yes that's what you did. You equated a hobby you don't like with doing drugs, a far worse undertaking. When I try to equate it to something relatable on the personal vice scale, you get offended because you like TV. So yes strawman and slippery slope away.

 
Joe Bryant said:
That's exactly the situation I know people are in. I remember as far back as 20 years ago, Yamaha was using robots in their manufacturing. I hated it. 

Partly because for me, employing people was such a giant part of why I wanted to be in business. 

If I were still there today, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have to consider it. At some point it becomes a question of remaining in business vs going out of business. It's like a lay off in a recession. A few people lose their job so the company stays alive for the majority of the employees. But the hope was always to rehire anyone laid off like that. And we did. 

My gut feel is I'd fight the robotic stuff super hard. But it feels to me it's eventually a losing battle. 

And on a real world practical level, those people being replaced by robots are having a tough time. I know the theoretical talk about society benefitting as a whole and more time to do what you want all that. That to me sounds like pie in the sky. When you're looking in the eyes of a 45 year old husband with limited marketable skills and a wife and 2 kids at home with bills to pay that are due that week. The theory talk of a utopian future doesn't sit well with him. 
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Even the simple things.  I know a lady who manages a Panera Bread.   When they installed the kiosk for people to order from they eliminated 40-60 hours of human labor a week instead of having 2-3 people take and process orders they only need one most of the time.   Does not seem like much but most of their employees are part time people, moms, HS and college kids who need that 20s hour a week.  I asked her how do you handle it and she said.  Well we just try to spread out the hours.  If they were getting 20 they now get 8-10..then of course they usually quit to find more hours.

At a meeting she said that she was told within 5 years there may not even be an option to order from a person anymore. It will be all automated.

 
Da Guru said:
Even the simple things.  I know a lady who manages a Panera Bread.   When they installed the kiosk for people to order from they eliminated 40-60 hours of human labor a week instead of having 2-3 people take and process orders they only need one most of the time.   Does not seem like much but most of their employees are part time people, moms, HS and college kids who need that 20s hour a week.  I asked her how do you handle it and she said.  Well we just try to spread out the hours.  If they were getting 20 they now get 8-10..then of course they usually quit to find more hours.

At a meeting she said that she was told within 5 years there may not even be an option to order from a person anymore. It will be all automated.
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With Panera, I just order online so it is there waiting for me.  Walk in/walk out.

 
The next wave will come for financial service advisors.  

There is just not a need for 10s of millions of people to tell you to put your money in an index fund and forget about it.  

Robo-advisors are already in place at many houses and this is spreading.  And it's not like they charge a fee discount or anything.  That money just flows up to the top.  

Though I will say 10 years ago I would have thought the bank branch on every corner model would fade and disappear, but yet here we are and they are still everywhere.

 
Insein said:
Yes that's what you did. You equated a hobby you don't like with doing drugs, a far worse undertaking. When I try to equate it to something relatable on the personal vice scale, you get offended because you like TV. So yes strawman and slippery slope away.
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:lol:  I wasn't offended.  You just don't understand my post or logical fallacies. 

 
Dan Lambskin said:
Yeah this is how it usually goes

someone comes up with a proposal to spend X to eliminate Y workers.  Payback probably 1-3 years

then the proposal gets up through finance and C-level and nobody wants to invest in the upfront capital because that would cause them to underperform that quarter and it might affect their bonus
Click to expand...
I think there is truth in this before--however, with the demand for increased minimum wage, the upfront capital becomes palatable.

You can see the transition slowly happening everywhere around you--the Walmart near me already had self-checkouts, but now they have taken out more full-service registers and gone with self-scan type aisles. Movie theaters were already moving towards kiosks to buy tickets. The biggest thing I have seen is in the last week both the McDonalds and Taco Bell have installed order kiosks.. They have one employee to help customers who pay cash, hand out drink cups and hand out food. Boom, the need for three employees has just been reduced to one.  

 
Insein said:
Yes that's what you did. You equated a hobby you don't like with doing drugs, a far worse undertaking. When I try to equate it to something relatable on the personal vice scale, you get offended because you like TV. So yes strawman and slippery slope away.
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Personally, I'm a straw slope and slippery man kind of guy.

 
Courtjester said:
I think there is truth in this before--however, with the demand for increased minimum wage, the upfront capital becomes palatable.

You can see the transition slowly happening everywhere around you--the Walmart near me already had self-checkouts, but now they have taken out more full-service registers and gone with self-scan type aisles. Movie theaters were already moving towards kiosks to buy tickets. The biggest thing I have seen is in the last week both the McDonalds and Taco Bell have installed order kiosks.. They have one employee to help customers who pay cash, hand out drink cups and hand out food. Boom, the need for three employees has just been reduced to one.  
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Yeah sorry I meant more along the lines of manufacturing and assembly.  Customer service / order taking much easier to replace 

 
culdeus said:
The next wave will come for financial service advisors.  

There is just not a need for 10s of millions of people to tell you to put your money in an index fund and forget about it.  

Robo-advisors are already in place at many houses and this is spreading.  And it's not like they charge a fee discount or anything.  That money just flows up to the top.  

Though I will say 10 years ago I would have thought the bank branch on every corner model would fade and disappear, but yet here we are and they are still everywhere.
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We are thisclose to someone designing a user friendly Quicken type algorithm program for financial investment that catches on with the masses.  Something that's basically the Amazon of financial/retirement planning.

My "ten years ago" thing was that E-Trade would have made stock traders obsolete. 

Side note: I still can't believe a business model that has clients lining up for an $8 cup of average tasting coffee turned out to be a successful thing.

 
ZenoRazon said:
Sales............that is the biz to get into to.  There will never be some machine that can sell.

There you sit across from the husband and the wife. Bottom line......a stranger looking to walk out of their home with a check. This takes some serious talent.  The key.............create the need.
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Stop.

Selling is easy if you aren't an ahole.

Also - what you describe isn't selling imo.

 
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culdeus said:
The next wave will come for financial service advisors.  

There is just not a need for 10s of millions of people to tell you to put your money in an index fund and forget about it.  

Robo-advisors are already in place at many houses and this is spreading.  And it's not like they charge a fee discount or anything.  That money just flows up to the top.  

Though I will say 10 years ago I would have thought the bank branch on every corner model would fade and disappear, but yet here we are and they are still everywhere.
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One thing I've read about index fund investing (and that makes logical sense) is if everyone does it, it would no longer work.  No doubt automation will continue to impact that sector but it can't be primarily in indexing.  And even if it's computers picking stocks, people will have to pick the computers.

 
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Juxtatarot said:
One think I've read about index fund investing (and that makes logical sense) is if everyone does it, it would no longer work.  No doubt automation will continue to impact that sector but it can't be primarily in indexing.  And even if it's computers picking stocks, people will have to pick the computers.
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Well if you read a thing somewhere, it must be true.

 
Joe Bryant said:
And on a real world practical level, those people being replaced by robots are having a tough time. I know the theoretical talk about society benefitting as a whole and more time to do what you want all that. That to me sounds like pie in the sky. When you're looking in the eyes of a 45 year old husband with limited marketable skills and a wife and 2 kids at home with bills to pay that are due that week. The theory talk of a utopian future doesn't sit well with him. 
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Oh I absolutely agree with this.  This has the potential to devastate entire communities of people.  Which is why we should be trying to be enacting public policies now that will prevent these kinds of catastrophic changes in people's lives.  But what i don't think is the answer is to focus on making sure everyone is working a full time job,  In my judgment the answer is in redistributing resources so that people don't have to work a full time job to have a good life.

I started this thread in the PSF last month to discuss some of these issues.  The emphasis on "everyone should work full time" is not making our lives better, it's making them worse.  Lots of people are working full time jobs that don't require anywhere near 40 hours of work.  Some people are working full time jobs that don't even need to exist at all.  We need to change our entire mindset about this.

 
The first group that will be greatly affected are all the menial jobs, cashiers etc that are usually occupied by high school kids. I'm not sure in the future what first jobs these kids will be getting.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
Oh I absolutely agree with this.  This has the potential to devastate entire communities of people.  Which is why we should be trying to be enacting public policies now that will prevent these kinds of catastrophic changes in people's lives.  But what i don't think is the answer is to focus on making sure everyone is working a full time job,  In my judgment the answer is in redistributing resources so that people don't have to work a full time job to have a good life.

I started this thread in the PSF last month to discuss some of these issues.  The emphasis on "everyone should work full time" is not making our lives better, it's making them worse.  Lots of people are working full time jobs that don't require anywhere near 40 hours of work.  Some people are working full time jobs that don't even need to exist at all.  We need to change our entire mindset about this.
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Right. I've said before in other threads that automation and other technological advances are going to force us to either reconsider the notion of work for pay, or we will drift into a state where wealth inequality will be extreme (even more extreme than it already is), with revolution the ultimate outcome in the later case. Right now the trend seems to be toward the latter scenario.

 
chet said:
There's no doubt that automation will replace many jobs in this country over the next few decades.  The question is what will people do with their extra time--if society uses it productively, then automation will be a win.  By productively, I mean something that will benefit society as a whole:  music, art etc.  Wasting it on video games for example, on the other hand, will have no benefit for society.
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We should be considering a tax on corporations that automate jobs - nothing ridiculous but do it now before it potentially gets away from us. 

 
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culdeus said:
The next wave will come for financial service advisors.  

There is just not a need for 10s of millions of people to tell you to put your money in an index fund and forget about it.  

Robo-advisors are already in place at many houses and this is spreading.  And it's not like they charge a fee discount or anything.  That money just flows up to the top.  

Though I will say 10 years ago I would have thought the bank branch on every corner model would fade and disappear, but yet here we are and they are still everywhere.
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Are they?  I’ve seen a lot of banks close and honestly couldn’t tell you where the closest bank is to where I live.

 
The major issue is that in the past the changes have been much slower, allowing people the chance to re-skill. As time goes on the rate of change is rapidly increasing. This next wave is coming so fast and will affect so many industries, the majority of people will not be ready for it.

I work for a Fortune 10 company, in 2014 our CEO told everyone that in 2020 80% of our current jobs will no longer exist. There will be new jobs but far fewer than the 80% that will no longer exist. Now, I believe that the actual number of jobs that will have vanished by 2020 will be far lower, closer to 25% but we are on that path. In the past year or so over 40k people have been surplussed and there's a few more rounds coming up this year.  We've been given direction and resources to retool but it must be on our own time. This is basically to weed out the people that won't change.

In 10 years the % of jobs that will require at least a basic level of programming will far exceed  that % today. There's almost no industry that this won't touch. There's going to be radical change the next 10-20 years and I fear a lot of people will be left behind.

 
AAABatteries said:
Are they?  I’ve seen a lot of banks close and honestly couldn’t tell you where the closest bank is to where I live.
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bank branches continue to pop up everywhere in our town and I can't figure it why - I mean what's the strategy?  

can any banking guys help with why so many branches are appearing in the last few years?

 
Binky The Doormat said:
bank branches continue to pop up everywhere in our town and I can't figure it why - I mean what's the strategy?  

can any banking guys help with why so many branches are appearing in the last few years?
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Are they small community type banks or majors like TD, Wells Fargo etc?

 
culdeus said:
The next wave will come for financial service advisors.  

There is just not a need for 10s of millions of people to tell you to put your money in an index fund and forget about it.  

Robo-advisors are already in place at many houses and this is spreading.  And it's not like they charge a fee discount or anything.  That money just flows up to the top.  

Though I will say 10 years ago I would have thought the bank branch on every corner model would fade and disappear, but yet here we are and they are still everywhere.
Click to expand...
The wave is coming in the accounting/tax arena as well, and it's already here in certain instances.  

 
AAABatteries said:
We should be considering a tax on corporations that automate jobs - nothing ridiculous but do it now before it potentially gets away from us. 
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I get the reason you would want to consider something like this, but wouldn't this simultaneously discourage technological progress?  I am not sure that is a desired outcome either.

 
AAABatteries said:
Are they?  I’ve seen a lot of banks close and honestly couldn’t tell you where the closest bank is to where I live.
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I have seen at least 3 brick and mortar banks go up in the past couple years within a few miles of where I live.  We didn't have any shortage of them prior.  There are currently 5 branches of Chase within 5 miles of my house.  There are 7 different brick and mortar banks within 2 miles of my house...9 if you want to count branches in WalMart and the local grocery store.

 
Who wants to get in on the ground floor with me on RobotGuys.com??  The ultimate place for your fantasy robot leagues.  

We're going to be pioneers in value-based drafting -- you don't pick a factory line worker or robot vacuum ahead of an autonomous vehicle, unless they drop far enough into the 3rd round -- and we will make the best predictions out there.

I'll be honest -- what we do here at RobotGuys won't be for everyone.  It's a big internet, and if it's not right for you, I'm sure there's another place you can find that works for you.

Some people will think our "no robot frontal nudity" policy is a little puritan.  Look, I get it.  But those are somebody's robo-daughters, and I'm just not comfortable having that on our site.

O

 
Otis said:
Who wants to get in on the ground floor with me on RobotGuys.com??  The ultimate place for your fantasy robot leagues.  

We're going to be pioneers in value-based drafting -- you don't pick a factory line worker or robot vacuum ahead of an autonomous vehicle, unless they drop far enough into the 3rd round -- and we will make the best predictions out there.

I'll be honest -- what we do here at RobotGuys won't be for everyone.  It's a big internet, and if it's not right for you, I'm sure there's another place you can find that works for you.

Some people will think our "no robot frontal nudity" policy is a little puritan.  Look, I get it.  But those are somebody's robo-daughters, and I'm just not comfortable having that on our site.

O
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it's just nuts, bolts, and washers..   :oldunsure:

 
Otis said:
Who wants to get in on the ground floor with me on RobotGuys.com??  The ultimate place for your fantasy robot leagues.  

We're going to be pioneers in value-based drafting -- you don't pick a factory line worker or robot vacuum ahead of an autonomous vehicle, unless they drop far enough into the 3rd round -- and we will make the best predictions out there.

I'll be honest -- what we do here at RobotGuys won't be for everyone.  It's a big internet, and if it's not right for you, I'm sure there's another place you can find that works for you.

Some people will think our "no robot frontal nudity" policy is a little puritan.  Look, I get it.  But those are somebody's robo-daughters, and I'm just not comfortable having that on our site.

O
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IN.  I bring six years of competitive robotics experience to the table.  

 
Otis said:
Who wants to get in on the ground floor with me on RobotGuys.com??  The ultimate place for your fantasy robot leagues.  

We're going to be pioneers in value-based drafting -- you don't pick a factory line worker or robot vacuum ahead of an autonomous vehicle, unless they drop far enough into the 3rd round -- and we will make the best predictions out there.

I'll be honest -- what we do here at RobotGuys won't be for everyone.  It's a big internet, and if it's not right for you, I'm sure there's another place you can find that works for you.

Some people will think our "no robot frontal nudity" policy is a little puritan.  Look, I get it.  But those are somebody's robo-daughters, and I'm just not comfortable having that on our site.

O
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:robothawkscreech:

 
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