Automation - How far can it go?

[loafer123]

mondeoman said:

Cannot? thats a very strong position to take. What happens when Google self driving cars and Uber get together? What are all the taxi drivers going to do?
Amazon and Google cars? Thats a bunch of delivery drivers out of work and they cant all become Barristas working for Costa and Starbucks...

it is going to get very radical and not that far away either.

I completely agree.

Greater corporate taxation and the introduction of Universal Income will follow shortly thereafter along with stringent immigration controls.

[davepoth]

loafer123 said:

I completely agree.

Greater corporate taxation and the introduction of Universal Income will follow shortly thereafter along with stringent immigration controls.

The immigration controls part is the most fascinating one, and I guess will focus on the question of whether work will be desirable in the future - if people still want to work but there is no mass employment, those jobs will be hot commodities.

I can see that we might need to sign a lot of bilateral treaties with other countries of similar levels of economic development so that our home country can continue to provide our income even if we're abroad - this is what happens for pensions at the moment.

[ben_h100]

glazbagun said:

This video is two years old, so basically totally obsolete already, but this is a good example of how far computers are coming on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4kyRyKyOpo

And at the end he talks about the implications.

Glad you posted that - first thing that came to mind.

Adding to the thread; if we end up in a position where 95% of the population are on some sort of 'universal credit/income', what incentives would there be to work? Will the 5% of workers be on incredible salaries?

[loafer123]

ben_h100 said:

glazbagun said:

This video is two years old, so basically totally obsolete already, but this is a good example of how far computers are coming on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4kyRyKyOpo

And at the end he talks about the implications.

Glad you posted that - first thing that came to mind.

Adding to the thread; if we end up in a position where 95% of the population are on some sort of 'universal credit/income', what incentives would there be to work? Will the 5% of workers be on incredible salaries?

I think it is more likely that people will want to work and in return will receive additional pay which reflects the value added, just as they do now.

If you are just bored and want human interaction, you might be happy to receive little extra, whereas if you are creating or inventing things which add value to lives or generate profit, you would receive a lot more.

[anonymous-user]

With further automation we may get back to the days of one parent working and one raising the kids, or part time working.

Re the automated taxis comment - the kids on my sister's street play on the street a great deal, but they are soooooo ignorant or away with the fairies. My sister often complains that when she drives up to her house she has to bellow at them to move out of the road or out of the way of her driveway and I've noticed it once when I we went on a family visit. That may seem OT but my point is how would an automated taxi cope with that, how would an automated taxi cope with pedestrians who refuse to give way? A taxi driver can bellow and swear and be a bit forceful, what would the automaton be programmed to do? Would it be reliant on the passenger to get involved, when previously they could sit serenely and let the driver do all that? I'm sure taxi drivers laying down in front of automated taxis would put stop to the idea especially if the anti-collision system failed and a few got ran over.

[wiggy001]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

This is much closer to the mark that driverless cars and no need to work, which is just fantasy imho. Tech will make our jobs easier but at the end of the day people will always work with people.

A factory may require less manual workers, and they may be able to work remotely, but they will still be required.

What use is a driverless lorry delivering your sofa if you have no-one to unload it for you?

Working in IT, I've implemented systems that could and arguably should have made dozens of people redundant, yet the companies concerned simply reallocate the people to something else they didn't realise they needed doing, rather than make them redundant. There's a reason for that...

For the next 100 years, the Jetsons will remain the stuff of fiction.

[loafer123]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I suppose the best way of looking at it is that we are talking about driverless cars in the context of artificial intelligence, so if you can recognise a situation and act accordingly, so can the computer driving the car.

I highly recommend the Wait But Why articles on the subject of AI.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intellige...

[davepoth]

wiggy001 said:

This is much closer to the mark that driverless cars and no need to work, which is just fantasy imho. Tech will make our jobs easier but at the end of the day people will always work with people.

It's not about the elimination of all jobs, but the elimination of swathes of jobs with no sign of new employment for those people. Not everybody can re-skill and move.

in 1950 if you were a bit thick it was likely you'd still be able to get a well paying job - factory work, manual labour, that sort of thing. These days it's much harder. As I've mentioned above, in former industrial areas the world over there are now lots of people who don't work, and have no real hope of ever working. There just aren't enough jobs available for people who have strong backs but little else; work has already ended for that group.

[Kermit power]

davepoth said:

It's not about the elimination of all jobs, but the elimination of swathes of jobs with no sign of new employment for those people. Not everybody can re-skill and move.

in 1950 if you were a bit thick it was likely you'd still be able to get a well paying job - factory work, manual labour, that sort of thing. These days it's much harder. As I've mentioned above, in former industrial areas the world over there are now lots of people who don't work, and have no real hope of ever working. There just aren't enough jobs available for people who have strong backs but little else; work has already ended for that group.

And yet, here we are, in one of the most industrialised countries on the planet, with an unemployment rate below 5%, which is as close as most economists reckon we could ever get to full employment...

[davepoth]

Kermit power said:

And yet, here we are, in one of the most industrialised countries on the planet, with an unemployment rate below 5%, which is as close as most economists reckon we could ever get to full employment...

But productivity remains low, because it's still working out cheaper to employ minimum wage workers from poor countries than automate.

And what's the prevailing current within the developed world? Shut the doors and stop the supply of cheap workers. Upping the wage floor will drive corporations to find cheaper solutions.

[JagLover]

davepoth said:

Kermit power said:

And yet, here we are, in one of the most industrialised countries on the planet, with an unemployment rate below 5%, which is as close as most economists reckon we could ever get to full employment...

But productivity remains low, because it's still working out cheaper to employ minimum wage workers from poor countries than automate.

And what's the prevailing current within the developed world? Shut the doors and stop the supply of cheap workers. Upping the wage floor will drive corporations to find cheaper solutions.

This

In countries where there isn't either an endless supply of cheap labour, or it is far more difficult to employ workers, automation is already more advanced in the service sector.

As two examples French hypermarkets have electronically adjusting price displays and in Japan you have the growing automation of cheap restaurants.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/does-this...

Were it not for the cheap alternative of unskilled Labour it is doubtful our productivity performance would have been so dire since the early 2000s.

[Kermit power]

JagLover said:

As two examples French hypermarkets have electronically adjusting price displays.

That's not just about reducing staffing levels. Yes, it does reduce them, but they can benefit far more by rapidly changing prices, sometimes multiple times per day, depending on buying trends, remaining stock levels in store and so on, at a speed which shop floor staff just wouldn't be able to do.

[davepoth]

Kermit power said:

That's not just about reducing staffing levels. Yes, it does reduce them, but they can benefit far more by rapidly changing prices, sometimes multiple times per day, depending on buying trends, remaining stock levels in store and so on, at a speed which shop floor staff just wouldn't be able to do.

So why would you have people doing that job exactly?

[Kermit power]

davepoth said:

Kermit power said:

That's not just about reducing staffing levels. Yes, it does reduce them, but they can benefit far more by rapidly changing prices, sometimes multiple times per day, depending on buying trends, remaining stock levels in store and so on, at a speed which shop floor staff just wouldn't be able to do.

So why would you have people doing that job exactly?

You'd have to ask British supermarkets that, I suppose, but the point I was making was that manpower savings in that particular instance are an additional bonus rather than the core goal.

[PhillipM]

I'm sick of tripping over all those unemployed farm hands since the horse collar and the tractor came in. They're bloody everywhere.

[davepoth]

PhillipM said:

I'm sick of tripping over all those unemployed farm hands since the horse collar and the tractor came in. They're bloody everywhere.

To a point, yes. There has up to now been a turnover of roles for uneducated people to move into, so while some got left behind, most were able to find something to do.

But what jobs are being created for unskilled labour?

[mondeoman]

Barrista, burger flipper, deli sandwich maker, Amazon delivery driver, uber driver, ermmmmm

[Gecko1978]

Wife an I stopped on the M1 services yesterday for a McMeal and she went in and did it all on a touch screen then waited for her meal. We talked it over in the car an wondered if you could make a burger with a robot etc. We agreed chicken nuggest an chips could all be automated maybe a burger is more complex with layers

but clearly as at today you could cut staff at these places and at same time reduce cases of poorly cooked food etc

Automated cleaning machine (remove seats so its all standing an it might be easier) automated ordering, an automated delivery to front desk i.e. robot chip maker an human burger flipper put then in a robot server etc

[PhillipM]

davepoth said:

To a point, yes. There has up to now been a turnover of roles for uneducated people to move into, so while some got left behind, most were able to find something to do.

But what jobs are being created for unskilled labour?

Someone's gotta service the autonomous cars and clean the automatic burger bars.

[Gecko1978]

PhillipM said:

davepoth said:

To a point, yes. There has up to now been a turnover of roles for uneducated people to move into, so while some got left behind, most were able to find something to do.

But what jobs are being created for unskilled labour?

Someone's gotta service the autonomous cars and clean the automatic burger bars.

Maybe or perhaps at the end of each shift they will self service etc

either way a person of a machine doing it will be less than current head count at the burger chain