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...which has something to do with robot cops and automation?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Can we just get robotic fast food workers instead of police? If we have an AI that can beat a Jeopardy champion it's got to be possible to make a hamburger and fries. I'd love to interact with a soulless robot instead of a person that seems like they'd gladly eat a bullet instead of actually annunciating.

Oh it's going to happen if people keep pushing for massive minimum wage hikes. You'll see all these jobs just disappear. Fast Food restaurant human staff will eventually be comprised of 1 dude who has a degree in mechanics and customer service. He maintains the machines and cleans the eating areas/deals with any customer issues that need a human to fix and makes 80k+ a year because he's literally the only employee.

Running a fast food restaurant will basically become a pretty highly paid job, but each restaurant would only support 1-2 people.

You go through a drive through, you'll pull a touch screen on an extendable arm through your window and make your order. Then your food will be cooked and bagged by robot.

There's bits of truth in there but you're missing a whole lot.

First up, once tech like the above becomes possible, then fast food jobs will go whether the guy is on $9 an hour or $18. The primary factors in making that viable are the capital and maintenance costs of the machinery, the quality of the food compared to human staff, and the cost of stores (you would produce equal food amounts with with a store a fraction of the size of current ones). Even in terms of staff costs then most goes to middle and senior management, hr, finance, supply, all that stuff - the people on the store front are not even half the total labour bill. Those machine factors are big and hugely variable - if the cost of fitout of a restaurant is $250m then $9 or $18 doesn't matter, it won't happen. If fitout is $2m but the food standard is unfit for human consumption, then it won't happen. But if fitout is $2m and the food is fine (by junk food standards) then it will happen no matter whether you pay workers $9 or $18, it makes great economic sense either way.

Second up, you're making the same old mistake that so many make in thinking about this - you think the jobs most easy for humans to do are the jobs that are most likely to be taken by machines. But this isn't true. It took about a year, working with 1970s computing, to get a machine to get a high distinction in Yale's calculus exam. But until about a decade ago we were still struggling to get a robot to cross a slightly congested floor at the speed we expect of a toddler. What's become clear is that what is easy for a person is not necessarily the easiest things to teach a machine. Processes with large amount of database knowledge, math calculations, and constant, routine interactions are ideal for AI. But complex and changing environments with a lot of irregular tasks are not well suited to AI, and won't be for a long time. Assembly lines were an early adopter because they perfectly suited the strengths of AI. But it is a mistake to assume that other low skilled work will be next in line. Read what AI suits, and you'll see it probably suits GP work more than fast food - most GP interactions are routine and constant, and while that applies to much fast food work (frying a burger patty) much of it complex and ad hoc.

Bottom line, AI is going to take middle class jobs as quickly as it takes working class jobs. Hell, if current employee pay is a major driver as you suggest, then the middle class jobs will go even faster than the working class jobs.

What middle class jobs? Automation largely gutted those already. The US is now largely service driven and largely in low wage services. The higher wage services tend to be very difficult to automate, but the lower end is increasingly headed that way.

The next big cut will be commercial driving. Currently, it is a good field for people with limited education. But automation will destroy that job market in the next 10 years or so. Jobs will still exist, but the will be fewer and require more technical training.

Eliminating base food services is tougher than it appears as low level food service employees handle a number of tasks from cleanup, to customer interaction, to food prep and delivery. Attempts have been made to automate it for almost a century. But low skill employees are very cheap and versatile.

Automated law enforcement is probably not happening in the foreseeable future, but more mobile automated/drone cameras is definitely feasible.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
This is also how you get skynet cause of the increasing contempt for humanity this will give the robots.

Dammit, you almost got me banned again with my knee jerk response for this. Here's a cleaner, nicer version:

What about MY contempt for these barely human subs who do asinine things like celebrate the closure of Ringling Bros dressed in furry suits? If they oppose my hunting of non-sapient prey, I'll be more than happy to hunt them. Hell, I'd have good time taking a 18wheeler filled with individually caged half starved predators, and release them into the crowd. Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!

Having seen them torture human children for the terrible crime of visiting Sea World, I would not feel the least bit bad. As far as I can see, the difference between them and ISIS is a hijab.

Wait... what?...
I don't even know how mentioning the contempt for humanity working at a register, or any customer facing role, seems to be good a creating (as well as humbling some the next time they come across someone in the same position) led to this. I also didn't almost do anything, what you type is what you type.

 jmurph wrote:
What middle class jobs? Automation largely gutted those already. The US is now largely service driven and largely in low wage services. The higher wage services tend to be very difficult to automate, but the lower end is increasingly headed that way.

The next big cut will be commercial driving. Currently, it is a good field for people with limited education. But automation will destroy that job market in the next 10 years or so. Jobs will still exist, but the will be fewer and require more technical training.

Eliminating base food services is tougher than it appears as low level food service employees handle a number of tasks from cleanup, to customer interaction, to food prep and delivery. Attempts have been made to automate it for almost a century. But low skill employees are very cheap and versatile.

Automated law enforcement is probably not happening in the foreseeable future, but more mobile automated/drone cameras is definitely feasible.

This replacement is a tough subject that innovation in technology presents us with. The industrial revolution occurred and people adapted. We have to adapt as well and find new jobs for the lower and middle class. That's what our skilled politicians and education system have to work on.

Someone is going to need to manage, repair and create the automated systems as well as tend to all the related fields that can't be replaced by automation. Jmurph hit the nail on the head above about jobs requiring more technical training.

The problem is is that we are just in the middle of the automation replacement so industry-heavy places like the Rust Belt are hurt more by the advancement and tech friendly places like Silicon Valley, Raleigh and Seattle are doing well. Once we figure out how to shift the employment force to more viable fields, the situation will improve... well at least until another set of disruption technology advancements occur.

 jmurph wrote:
What middle class jobs? Automation largely gutted those already. The US is now largely service driven and largely in low wage services. The higher wage services tend to be very difficult to automate, but the lower end is increasingly headed that way.

It's always important to keep a level head about economics. You also see a lot of hyperbole in economics, especially when talking about future economic trends. You've fallen for a bit of that here. For instance, it is true that middle class jobs are in decline, but you've taken that to the extreme of 'what middle class jobs', as if they don't exist at all. And you've then gone on to claim that the US is largely low wage service jobs - that area has been on the rise, but thinking that it defines the US is very mistaken - the US median wage is the 6th highest in the world, ahead of Canada, Germany, the UK, France and Germany.

The next big cut will be commercial driving. Currently, it is a good field for people with limited education. But automation will destroy that job market in the next 10 years or so. Jobs will still exist, but the will be fewer and require more technical training.

Yeah, this seems pretty likely.

Eliminating base food services is tougher than it appears as low level food service employees handle a number of tasks from cleanup, to customer interaction, to food prep and delivery. Attempts have been made to automate it for almost a century. But low skill employees are very cheap and versatile.

Yep, fast food employees are cheap and (more importantly) really cheap to train, while machines to replace them will be really expensive. They're probably one of the safest sectors from full scale automation.

Automated law enforcement is probably not happening in the foreseeable future, but more mobile automated/drone cameras is definitely feasible.

Yeah, we'll see lots more surveillance tech, and also probably a bit of supporting tech, drones you can release to track a fleeing suspect, stuff like that.

But because policing is a government industry, what you won't see is tech being rolled out to facilitate reduced policemen. Govt doesn't work like that. When it finds an efficiency it uses it do more of its job, in this case catch more baddies, patrol more areas. It doesn't roll out tech to reduce its payroll.

What's different between now and the industrial revolution (or any other period where tech replaced jobs) is that our ability to render jobs obselete looks like it is beginning to exceed our ability to generate new ones. The automated factory does not employ nearly as many people as it used to... And that's it. Consumption isn't really rising so there's little need to scale up production, and the number of mechanics will always be a tiny fraction of what employment was. I think this is a trend that has been offset by reduced/falling population growth in first world counties over time; the number of people looking for jobs hasn't been increasing like it used to. And that's made it less visible overall.

Now am I worried about increasing automation screwing us all over? Not at all. Because at the end of the day the people running the scene still need consumers to drive the whole process, so they will find a way to make sure people still have the means to purchase.

[Edit] I should caveat this by saying that, like Sebster explained in better detail above, I expect low-end jobs will still be available in large number. And by clarifying that the difference this century with increasing tech vs jobs is that in the past, technological advancements that displaced jobs were about increasing the productivity of a human worker. Double the productivity of the worker means half the workers needed, and so on. But now human workers are being replaced entirely. Its not that the human worker now produces twice as much, its that the robot produces 20, 50, 100 times as much.

I just read an amazing quote talking about automation on Wall Street;

"A few years ago Goldman Sachs Group Inc's leaders took a hard look at how the bank carries out initial public offerings. They mapped 127 steps in every deal, then set out to see how many could be done by computers instead of people. The answer so far - about half."

And sure, those steps they're replacing are mostly from the bottom rung of associates. But that bottom rung associate job pays $326k. This is not computers replacing the minimum wage or even the middle class, this is automation replacing the 1%.

Hold on to your hats people, because there's no guarantee that skills will save you from what we're wandering in to.

 sebster wrote:
I just read an amazing quote talking about automation on Wall Street;

"A few years ago Goldman Sachs Group Inc's leaders took a hard look at how the bank carries out initial public offerings. They mapped 127 steps in every deal, then set out to see how many could be done by computers instead of people. The answer so far - about half."

And sure, those steps they're replacing are mostly from the bottom rung of associates. But that bottom rung associate job pays $326k. This is not computers replacing the minimum wage or even the middle class, this is automation replacing the 1%.

Hold on to your hats people, because there's no guarantee that skills will save you from what we're wandering in to.

Yeah a lot of law work/medicinal/finance can be automated, the next wave of automation is likely gonna hit the middle/high income earners the worse then the low income earners

 NinthMusketeer wrote:


[Edit] I should caveat this by saying that, like Sebster explained in better detail above, I expect low-end jobs will still be available in large number. And by clarifying that the difference this century with increasing tech vs jobs is that in the past, technological advancements that displaced jobs were about increasing the productivity of a human worker. Double the productivity of the worker means half the workers needed, and so on. But now human workers are being replaced entirely. Its not that the human worker now produces twice as much, its that the robot produces 20, 50, 100 times as much.

Disagree, We still haven't come so far to cut people entirely out of the productive process. There is no business where robots/machines can independently produce, humans are still needed for the robots/machines to be productive. So I would say that machines still act as force multiplier for labour, but we are about to enter a period where the multiplier has become so big that the constant(labour) can be a lot smaller then it used to be. This in of itself is no problem, I would rather say it something positive. In an ideal scenario this would mean that we could lower the workday for vast amount of people without really harming productivity in any substantial way.

Unfortunately we live in a world where we produce for profit instead of for need, so instead we are gonna have a situation where 50% population or so works 8 hours a day while the other 50% while have to scrape by off unemployment benefits if they are lucky.

 Popsghostly wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
What middle class jobs? Automation largely gutted those already. The US is now largely service driven and largely in low wage services. The higher wage services tend to be very difficult to automate, but the lower end is increasingly headed that way.

The next big cut will be commercial driving. Currently, it is a good field for people with limited education. But automation will destroy that job market in the next 10 years or so. Jobs will still exist, but the will be fewer and require more technical training.

Eliminating base food services is tougher than it appears as low level food service employees handle a number of tasks from cleanup, to customer interaction, to food prep and delivery. Attempts have been made to automate it for almost a century. But low skill employees are very cheap and versatile.

Automated law enforcement is probably not happening in the foreseeable future, but more mobile automated/drone cameras is definitely feasible.

This replacement is a tough subject that innovation in technology presents us with. The industrial revolution occurred and people adapted. We have to adapt as well and find new jobs for the lower and middle class. That's what our skilled politicians and education system have to work on.

Someone is going to need to manage, repair and create the automated systems as well as tend to all the related fields that can't be replaced by automation. Jmurph hit the nail on the head above about jobs requiring more technical training.

The problem is is that we are just in the middle of the automation replacement so industry-heavy places like the Rust Belt are hurt more by the advancement and tech friendly places like Silicon Valley, Raleigh and Seattle are doing well. Once we figure out how to shift the employment force to more viable fields, the situation will improve... well at least until another set of disruption technology advancements occur.

The situation will not improve. The future is not Star Trek. The future is Elysium. I am just hoping t make it to retirement. The kiddoes are in industries that are creative and our robot overlords will need.

Unfortunately, Frazz, the facts seem to indicate you are more correct than not. Wealth continues to consolidate into fewer hands and as automation increasingly replaces even highly skilled and intellectual workers, this will only increase. The big question is how volatile the situation gets as populations grow and become increasingly uncomfortable with the resource distribution. If governments serve only the elite, the much larger underclass populations tend to get restless. Using force to quell dissent can quickly escalate, as history has repeatedly demonstrated. Likewise, an insulated ruling class often increases instability as factions vie for supremacy and to displace one another.

I can't help but wonder if our current modern world's inability to deal with it's advancements might not lead to a collapse down the road comparable to the Bronze Age collapse or deterioration and fragmentation of the West post Rome.

 jmurph wrote:
Unfortunately, Frazz, the facts seem to indicate you are more correct than not. Wealth continues to consolidate into fewer hands and as automation increasingly replaces even highly skilled and intellectual workers, this will only increase. The big question is how volatile the situation gets as populations grow and become increasingly uncomfortable with the resource distribution. If governments serve only the elite, the much larger underclass populations tend to get restless. Using force to quell dissent can quickly escalate, as history has repeatedly demonstrated. Likewise, an insulated ruling class often increases instability as factions vie for supremacy and to displace one another.

I can't help but wonder if our current modern world's inability to deal with it's advancements might not lead to a collapse down the road comparable to the Bronze Age collapse or deterioration and fragmentation of the West post Rome.

Well to keep the bright side option, governments have to change economics, if nothing else than to keep the wealthy obtaining wealth. That will require minimum incomes for everyone, else the capital owners will have no one to buy the fruit of their capital.

Keyneysian economics (deficit spending) and moving away from commodity based money is the just the first petal of that flower. There is one future, where the future is bright indeed.