In “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?,” Frey and Osborne estimate that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are “at risk” of being automated in the next 20 years. This does not mean that they necessarily will be automated (despite the way the study has been portrayed in some media outlets)—rather, the authors argue, it is plausible over the next two decades that existing and foreseeable AI technologies could be used to cost-effectively automate those jobs out of existence. Machines may not (and probably won't) do the jobs the same way as people, however—just remember the last time you used an automated check-out system at a grocery store. There’s a difference between machines doing something cheaply and doing it well. Frey and Osborne took into account the possibility of such “task simplification” in their analysis.

Our model predicts that most workers in transportation and logistics occupations, together with the bulk of office and administrative support workers, and labour in production occupations, are at risk. These findings are consistent with recent technological developments documented in the literature. More surprisingly, we find that a substantial share of employment in service occupations, where most US job growth has occurred over the past decades (Autor and Dorn, 2013), are highly susceptible to computerisation.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, when you think about it, a massive number of jobs could be done by robots.


Imagine Walmart with almost no employees.

Its all self-checkout. Only human's around are a couple rent-a-cops by the front doors and a couple customer service representatives.

All the items on the shelves are restocked by machine. The aisles are a little farther apart with the space between one aisle and another being a mechanical stocking system that gets equipment from the warehouse in back as the shelf is emptied.

Now instead of employing a hundred or so people the Walmart only has a dozen or so employees.


Fast Food will probably be the first industry to be fully mechanized though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is nothing wrong with automating all the jobs so long as the rich then don't castigate the rest of us for being unemployed, and let us starve to death.