Will you survive automation?

[FaxModem1]

Automation, if properly prepared for, is a great thing. Less work is done by human hands, it frees up time, production is more efficient, more dangerous jobs are done by expendable machines, etc.

However, if you live in a society like ours, in which you have to work to live, automation can be a bad thing. Salaries are the most expensive parts of a business's operation. The first industrial revolution led to a dry up of agriculture jobs, and people moving to cities for factory jobs, as agriculture required less hands.

Then, in the past century or so, factory jobs have been drying up as robots replace humans in a lot of menial, repetitive tasks. This led to a surge in retail and customer service jobs.

Now, with things like automated kiosks and computers on tech support lines, those jobs are starting to dwindle.

So, the big question becomes, what's next in automation, and will you survive the next wave as machines start eliminating more fields?

Discuss.

[Darth Wedgius]

I probably will, but it's not certain. I'm a programmer, so I do have to think for a living, and we don't have that level of AI yet. That said, programming is a pretty logical area, and we wouldn't need the full AI capabilities needed to write a novel. And if a business needs a simple data-entry program, they might choose a solution that is 90% as good if it costs 1% as much.

It might be worth noting that a lot of the work automation can do can also be done by shipping jobs overseas. You can (or at least, last time I heard) get two programmers overseas for one here, and I suspect a lot of manufacturing works the same way.

[Riedquat]

Possibly, but I don't think my job is under much threat. It's actually in development, so the rest of this post shows me as a hypocrite.

I don't view it as a great thing though (although there are always execptions, such as very dangerous or tedious jobs); at any rate the idea of living in a highly automated world holds no appeal whatsoever and I suspect the social damage will be immense - all those people will be fundamentally useless. We've only got away with it so far because, going back to pre-industrial times, it was necessary to improve productivity enough to give everyone a reasonable standard of living. We're past that point now - we already could have a lot more leisure time with a good standard of living, and I strongly believe that the ideal work-life balance is not zero work. And I prefer my day to day dealings to be with or at least involve fellow human beings, not machines.

If we could build the Enterprise how many crew will it really have? Zero, except passengers.

The best case scenario is we eventually start wondering why we've got a pile of complicated machines built to do things and people sitting around getting bored, and some sort of balance is reached. It might look more like people do lots of unpaid voluntary work but that would be more of a sign of a completely changed economic system.

The future depresses me.

[pilight]

We'll all survive, but there will be a significant change in our economic and social systems.

[Mecha82]

World has already changed lot of times during history so I am sure that humanity will also survive changes to economic and social systems that automation is sure to bring with it.

[Riedquat]

World has already changed lot of times during history so I am sure that humanity will also survive changes to economic and social systems that automation is sure to bring with it.

I'm sure it'll survive - us nuking ourselves out of existence is always a possibility but of all the automation fears I don't count Skynet amongst them. It just doesn't hold much appeal to me.

[clearspira]

I am cynical as hell about the future, but no jobs - no money - higher welfare with no one to pay for it.
My bet: another Trump style reactionary leader banning forms of AI.

[LittleRaven]

Personally? Absolutely. But that's easy for me to say - I'm old. I'm eligible for a pension in just a few years, and there's no way automation is coming for my job THAT quickly.

But if I were a young programmer just starting out, then I'd be concerned. Programming tools just get better and better every year. Over the course of my career, I've watched my work load shift from "technically implement a solution" to "design a solution and let Visual Studio do the lion's share of making it work." And don't get me wrong, this is fantastic. I can do way more in way less time than I could 15 years ago. But it's easy to imagine a future where the analyst doesn't need me to make the numbers dance anymore. I certainly don't think that coding will be the awesome career for someone just starting out today that it was for me. But then again that's probably what every old fart thinks.

[LittleRaven]

We'll all survive, but there will be a significant change in our economic and social systems.

If there's one thing that automation is amazing at, it's generating wealth. It's just very, very bad at distributing it. We'll have to fix that, and that will be hard, but I'm pretty sure we'll manage it.

[Darth Wedgius]

I am cynical as hell about the future, but no jobs - no money - higher welfare with no one to pay for it.
My bet: another Trump style reactionary leader banning forms of AI.

But we don't have any politicians with experience fighting AI.



Besides that.