Federal report: AI could threaten up to 47 percent of jobs in two decades

Artificial intelligence may also widen the inequality gap among workers.

Read the whole story

 

[AdamM]

This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

 

[Shinzakura]

Government, education and corporations would have to be suicidally stupid not to prepare for this shitstorm. What it took a room full of secretaries on typewriters to do in the 40s it takes a single person now, and 40 of those single people will be replaced in a decade or two or three by a single automated robot/process/whatever. Other jobs are at risk as well, and the only ones that don't seem to be are C-level jobs (which, one could argue, computers could do already, but nobody's letting go of those positions.)

Simple math: you have enough people without jobs, those people are going to find something to do, and it might not necessarily be what those in the lofty positions might like.

 

[EricBerger]

AdamM[/url]":2bs80csr]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

I've got two young daughters and I think about this at least once a week when I drop them off at school ...

 

[Sajuuk]

At least the robots will never replace doctors, lawyers, drivers, StarCraft pros. I'm of the, completely amateur opinion, that we're about to witness a fundamental economic shift away from neoliberal capitalism. Markets fundamentally cannot work when there is no middle class to buy.

"The Hamptons is not a defensible position".

 

[DarthSlack]

AdamM[/url]"d85hgmf]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

And why isn't the Government setting up training and education so that the workforce can train NOW.

What to really scare yourself? Go forth and Google "Industry 4.0"

Countries like Germany and China are preparing themselves now. The US? Apparently we're digging coal and raising tariffs to protect Industry 2.0.

 

[S_T_R]

AdamM[/url]":1pqku87s]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

Also, where you plan on living. You can specialize in AI itself, but if you're working for the only company in Bumfuck, Overflight that does any kind of analytics, it's going to be tough if they ever go under, get bought, or otherwise change in a way that makes you redundant. You are far from any large network and you skills may fall behind without you even knowing it.

Regional depression isn't about outsourcing or automation. It's about people that don't move along with industry. Advanced manufactures are mostly located near (but not necessarily in) larger cities. They still need machinists and welders, and most have a shortage of workers. Many are hiring back workers in their late 50's to 60's that previously retired. Meanwhile, nobody is hiring in Appalachia, because nobody is moving their plants there (because management and other professionals don't want to live there).

Rural unemployment will only stabilize when there's roughly as much supply of labor as there is demand. Demand isn't changing, so the supply must move. Which means we not only need retraining, but relocation initiatives.

 

[Aelix]

Even really high paying jobs will be affected. I worry about all the residents going into Radiology. With all of the fast developments in deep learning it's only a matter of time before a hospital only needs a handful of full-time Radiologists to over-read all of the machine interpreted exams. Even if the software was a million dollars per year the hospital would still be saving money.

 

[Mike D.]

I have often argued this point with a co-worker that believes that self-driving cars are the best thing since sliced bread. Where he sees better conditions on our roadways, I see:

– Millions of displaced truck drivers, bus drivers, cab drivers, chauffeurs, et al.

– Worse accidents when inattentive people that have been conditioned to have zero driving skills are placed in a situation where their self-driving vehicle has to turn control over to the driver.

– A machine making decision that only a human being—you know those living entities with rights and accountability—should ever make when the trolley scenario occurs.

We have been automating away the lower middle class to the point where they have reverted to pre-WWII working class status and are rapidly in danger of becoming the underclass. As a degreed technical professional and techie, I do not have an issue with technology per se, but we as a society have to be more thoughtful about how we implement new technologies.

In any given population most people are not going to be skilled techies, managers, and executives, let alone high paid celebrities or athletes. If we keep automating labor-based jobs away at this pace, we will be creating a population of the unemployable on a scale not ever seen in human history. The big problem that I see is jobs disappearing without replacement as in the past in a world where the population is growing. The economic inequality resulting from this trend will come at a price and when the dren hits the fan, the majority in the underclass are not going to distinguish between a Warren Buffet and one of the Koch brothers.

Edited for some clarification.

 

[raxx7]

A simple formula:
natural resources + human labour => goods and services.

If you divide the "goods and services" we produce equally for all the 7 billion of us, the result is a very poor standard of living.
In order for all the 7 billion of us to have a decent level of life, we need to improve the conversion of "natural resources" and "human labour" into "goods and services" by a factor of several fold.
At the moment, automation and AI are desperately needed.
Education of humans into high-productivity occupations is also desperately needed.

Then, maybe, we can worry about automation and AI taking up jobs.
Meanwhile, the "robots will take jobs" or the "chinese will take" jobs is a concern of developed countries which are living on the top of a unequal world.

 

[SalishViking]

It seems that in a generation or two, we may be a wealthier society than ever, in terms of our ability to produce goods, but a large fraction of our population will be unemployed and unemployable. In the best case, this is the first step towards a post-scarcity society. In the worst case, it's massive discontent and societal upheaval.

 

[Papageno]

We're going to need a universal basic income, period, full stop. Otherwise we're looking at a future like the one in that bad Matt Damon movie of a couple of years back. Basically the überrich and their hangers-on/toadies (so, at BEST 2 % of the population) live materially decent lives, and life for everyone else is the worst environmentally-degraded third-world favela hellhole you can imagine.

 

[arkiel]

I work with impoverished families from time to time, and I've tried a couple different ways to address this, when someone is trying to make a future career decision.

Truck driver is the number 1 most numerous job in my state. This shit is gonna suck hard.

 

[DarthSlack]

AdamM[/url]":lwc3puo5]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

I get the sentiment, but when you think back 20 years, how many of those jobs are here now? Over the course of my career in biology almost everything has changed in that amount of time and I've had to almost completely re-tool my skill set. We need to train people to think and learn and to be adaptable because there is absolutely no way we're gonna get it right about what jobs are there 20 years from now.

 

[Kane2207]

This report isn't going to play out well against the background of your recent election and the campaign promises to bring jobs back.

People who already feel marginalised are going to find they're even further on the fringes.

Manufacturing jobs are not coming back from automation. Once the inevitable happens with transport and menial jobs, that's it for the rust belt.

 

[unequivocal]

Sajuuk[/url]":2w01z7pa]At least the robots will never replace doctors, lawyers, drivers, StarCraft pros. I'm of the, completely amateur opinion, that we're about to witness a fundamental economic shift away from neoliberal capitalism. Markets fundamentally cannot work when there is no middle class to buy.

"The Hamptons is not a defensible position".

I disagree - I believe the problem is that productivity gains have gone solely to owners in the current capitalist approach. If productivity gains could be shared more broadly (in the way *productive outputs* are currently distributed), we could have a road out of this mess. That would involve a very big alteration of the current system, but it seems more attainable than abandoning markets altogether.

 

[anotherars profile]

I'd worry about this more than climate change.

We have billions of people on this earth and within a generation a big chunk might be out of a job. Within two generations even more will be. Only so many jobs in fixing and programming robots - if they don't do it themselves.

We need some smart people to address this our we are in big trouble.

 

[unequivocal]

Kane2207[/url]":3yvc98s2]This report isn't going to play out well against the background of your recent election and the campaign promises to bring jobs back.

People who already feel marginalised are going to find they're even further on the fringes.

Manufacturing jobs are not coming back from automation. Once the inevitable happens with transport and menial jobs, that's it for the rust belt.

This article makes a compelling counter-case: https://www.thenation.com/article/this- ... -thompson/

If this is right, Trump is not being asked by his "constituents" to give them anything. They want "total retaliation" against the elite class. As long as he pisses on the shoes of the powerful, they will support him. If true, this means that Trump is a totally different type of politician, and draws popular support and power from a different, and very dangerous source.

 

[Moedius]

Government, education and corporations would have to be suicidally stupid not to prepare for this shitstorm. What it took a room full of secretaries on typewriters to do in the 40s it takes a single person now, and 40 of those single people will be replaced in a decade or two or three by a single automated robot/process/whatever. Other jobs are at risk as well, and the only ones that don't seem to be are C-level jobs (which, one could argue, computers could do already, but nobody's letting go of those positions.)

Simple math: you have enough people without jobs, those people are going to find something to do, and it might not necessarily be what those in the lofty positions might like.

It won't be "not necessarily be what those in lofty positions might like"... it's guaranteed to plant the seeds for revolt. When the ideal of the American dream (arguably fantasy as it is) is no longer able to even exist on a pretense of achievability, and the income gap grows so large, and as mentioned previously, the middle class disappears and markets fail... that's an implosion, unrest, riots, etc.

Now add in drastic climate change and increasingly erratic weather extremes.

It sounds like the setting for the ubiquitous dystopian future film so popular these days.

 

[Velma Velvet]

Educational opportunities need to be a priority. Even during the recession jobs went unfilled because there weren't enough skilled workers to fill them. Higher education, just like health care, has become another casualty of corruption, exploited by the debt for life industry and no-value middlemen. That has to change.

 

[equine_physics]

anotherars profile[/url]"qy36jfq]I'd worry about this more than climate change.

We have billions of people on this earth and within a generation a big chunk might be out of a job. Within two generations even more will be. Only so many jobs in fixing and programming robots - if they don't do it themselves.

We need some smart people to address this our we are in big trouble.

Agreed. That is the issue I see when folks talk about re-training, education, and/or move to a different location. The flood of automation is slowing climbing up the labor ladder and only so many of those people can "move up". WHat do you do with the rest, let them drown?

People tend to get rather upset when you are trying to kill them off or take away what little they have. A guaranteed income is only part of a solution. People need a purpose, a focus otherwise they may have too much time to consider that Richie Rich still needs to be taken down a peg or three.

Troubling times for sure, given the next leader of the US and the global trend to ignore the needs of the masses.

 

[dumpus]

Ragnarredbeard[/url]":1bs4duby]

EricBerger[/url]":1bs4duby]

AdamM[/url]":1bs4duby]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

I've got two young daughters and I think about this at least once a week when I drop them off at school ...

> insensitive joke <

There will always be jobs for strippers.

> insensitive joke <

Not necessarily.

Teledildonics: all the potential benefits of an "evening on the town", but without having to explain the glitter and second-hand coke residue.

 

[Mike D.]

raxx7[/url]":2v0er0tj]
Education of humans into high-productivity occupations is also desperately needed.

I would agree with this sentiment were it not for the fact that it woefully fails to consider the human variable. The career paths least threatened by automation typically require post-secondary, if not graduate-level education in very specific fields of study, or very unique skills. The proportion of any given population that is capable of achieving that level of accomplishment is relatively small. Such people would not be (some level of) extraordinary if the ability to achieve that level of success was ordinary.

The fact of the matter is that half if not more of all people will never be more capable than doing the mundane. Note that this is not an insult, because I for one have a high appreciation for people that work in sanitation, custodial services, and other such occupations, because despite the lack of recognition of their work, they perform an important role in society.

 

[Shinzakura]

metafor[/url]":3iy5emer]In a way, we already have a form of Basic Income. It's just not a single program and it doesn't directly give money to people.

The DoD gets around 800B/year and a lot of that goes towards either employing military personnel or giving money for defense contractors to employ people.

The Federal bureaucracy employs something like 3M people as well.

In the age of automation, those jobs will be the slowest to be cut, maybe even never cut at all. Essentially taking tax money and paying people to do busywork with little productivity.

I beg to differ. I work in Government (disclosure: writing this from my desk at the US Fish & Wildlife Service during lunch) and the policy here is to hire one person for every three departures and it's been that way for years. I've heard similar from other friends in other agencies, including the military. And it's only going to get deeper in cuts in the next administration.

Granted, maybe this isn't happening at the state and local levels (or other nations, if you mean government in general), but I can assure you it's happening here in DC.

The problem is that the money is getting shifted to contractors, who only get paid 2/3 of what we government employees are, but whose positions cost 1.3-plus times more for the government to pay contracting companies.

 

[killerhurtalot]

DarthSlack[/url]":18paneds]

AdamM[/url]":18paneds]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

And why isn't the Government setting up training and education so that the workforce can train NOW.

What to really scare yourself? Go forth and Google "Industry 4.0"

Countries like Germany and China are preparing themselves now. The US? Apparently we're digging coal and raising tariffs to protect Industry 2.0.

I'm pretty sure that encouraging STEM is already being done... But people who actually chase it is either let down by a lot of jobs in the field...

Even with AI, you're still going to have to physically design and perform experiments for data the AI will draw upon, write code for the AI, design and build the automated factories...

 

[exadeath]

unequivocal[/url]":159ok5iy]

Kane2207[/url]":159ok5iy]This report isn't going to play out well against the background of your recent election and the campaign promises to bring jobs back.

People who already feel marginalised are going to find they're even further on the fringes.

Manufacturing jobs are not coming back from automation. Once the inevitable happens with transport and menial jobs, that's it for the rust belt.

This article makes a compelling counter-case: https://www.thenation.com/article/this- ... -thompson/

If this is right, Trump is not being asked by his "constituents" to give them anything. They want "total retaliation" against the elite class. As long as he pisses on the shoes of the powerful, they will support him. If true, this means that Trump is a totally different type of politician, and draws popular support and power from a different, and very dangerous source.

So the currency will be the stroking of Donald's ego. What will the exchange rate be from one high status person pleasing him versus many lower status people performing the same genuflection? Will there be a trading floor and market for this sort of thing..

 

[KAL1989]

metafor[/url]":303vdd3v]In a way, we already have a form of Basic Income. It's just not a single program and it doesn't directly give money to people.

The DoD gets around 800B/year and a lot of that goes towards either employing military personnel or giving money for defense contractors to employ people.

The Federal bureaucracy employs something like 3M people as well.

In the age of automation, those jobs will be the slowest to be cut, maybe even never cut at all. Essentially taking tax money and paying people to do busywork with little productivity.

But in a country with 300M people and counting, what do those other 297M+ people do (assuming their jobs are all lost to automation and AI)?

The government cannot employ everyone. There aren't enough tasks the government needs done that requires the entire population to work for them daily.

That said, businesses cannot survive if the other companies that employs people who buy their crap suddenly lose their jobs. How to handle and deploy AI where it doesn't negatively destroy the economy is important and all companies need to evaluate how to approach this properly.

We like AI and automation when it works for us. We don't like it if it works against us. This report is an example of it working against most of us and only helping a select few.

 

[Clock190]

The conversation around Basic Income needs to become mainstream, a lot sooner than later.

 

[Moedius]

DarthSlack[/url]":1o2o0g3q]

AdamM[/url]":1o2o0g3q]This should really be a major question people ask themselves when choosing a career field. Will this job be here in 20 years or at the very minimum will there be fewer jobs?

And why isn't the Government setting up training and education so that the workforce can train NOW.

What to really scare yourself? Go forth and Google "Industry 4.0"

Countries like Germany and China are preparing themselves now. The US? Apparently we're digging coal and raising tariffs to protect Industry 2.0.

I'm pretty sure that encouraging STEM is already being done... But people who actually chase it is either let down by a lot of jobs in the field...

Even with AI, you're still going to have to physically design and perform experiments for data the AI will draw upon, write code for the AI, design and build the automated factories...

It is being encouraged. I work in IT at a large school district, and STEMs had special programs running increasingly for the last decade or so. Just this year, they introduced some new courses that include app coding for mobile devices and basic AI. These are getting offered at earlier and earlier ages too.

This is good, it means some people are aware of the needs, but it's still far too little, and smaller and\or poorer districts would struggle to provide the same types of focuses.

 

[Shinzakura]

Zak[/url]":1vqr6hlu]The first jobs to be replaced with AI should be government jobs and corporate VIPs.

So, good luck when the bank takes your money (FDIC or NCUA insured). Or when another country invades (military), or hell, even when you get shot in the street (police.)

All of those, at one level or another, are government jobs. And let's not get into the corporate VIP jobs; some suck, yes, but some (Warren Buffet comes to mind) actually care about what's going on.

If asinine blanket statements must be made, at least make them within the context of reality.

 

[ichbinkgod]

Maybe there will be plenty of work for those willing to go to Mars.

 

[skyleabove]

We can't even get the minimum wage increased in the US, in fact it is in danger of being eliminated altogether. Politicians and the ones who control the purse strings would rather see you starve in the streets before handing out a universal income. Universal income would defeat the point of replacing you with a robot in the first place.

Edit: We cant even get everyone to agree that everyone deserves the same access to healthcare (aka the right to live).

 

[Pusher of Buttons]

This is why I don't have a problem with social programs that provide jobs....we will breech a point where a majority of people simply won't NEED to work, the economy will function without them, they'll just exist.

But you can't just depopulate....you need people for the standby workforce. So you need to....and others have brought up the Basic Income....find some way to keep these folks relevant and not grabbing pitchforks.

The smartest thing FDR did was create the WPA and agencies like it. Put people to work, ANY work, build a shelter in a park, clean up highways, help with forest management, literally anything. Keep them employed and maintaining some form of work ethic and relevance.

 

[nehinks]

If you haven't watched the show Humans it has a pretty interesting take on this evolution.

 

[S_T_R]

unequivocal[/url]":k5p2muia]

Sajuuk[/url]":k5p2muia]At least the robots will never replace doctors, lawyers, drivers, StarCraft pros. I'm of the, completely amateur opinion, that we're about to witness a fundamental economic shift away from neoliberal capitalism. Markets fundamentally cannot work when there is no middle class to buy.

"The Hamptons is not a defensible position".

I disagree - I believe the problem is that productivity gains have gone solely to owners in the current capitalist approach. If productivity gains could be shared more broadly (in the way *productive outputs* are currently distributed), we could have a road out of this mess. That would involve a very big alteration of the current system, but it seems more attainable than abandoning markets altogether.

Not really a big alteration, just an more equal distribution of profits to all stakeholders. We actually have this already, it's called profit sharing, and I've worked at companies that provided this in lieu of a 401k. All you need to do is up the % share (so that it works more like an executive bonus and supplements normal income instead of just being retirement income) and you've got an answer. It even helps businesses by automatically reducing costs during recessions (no profit = no profit share) which should reduce cyclical layoffs. Wages are sticky, most employees don't like it when they get a pay cut, even if they know it will keep their friends employed.

Admittedly, I'm not the first to advocate this. In fact, it was one of Clinton's main platforms for addressing this issue. It's a good idea (one of the few good ones to come from the campaign), albeit tricky to incentivize.

raxx7[/url]":k5p2muia]A simple formula:
natural resources + human labour => goods and services.

That's a very antiquated way of viewing economics. You do *not* need raw materials to create economic outputs. Services can result in other services, all of which create a virtuous circle of wealth. This is one of the underlying ideas of intellectual property. Intangibles count.

 

[anotherars profile]

And this isn't only blue collar. An article in yesterdays N.Y. Times states that up to 45% of white collar jobs are replaceable by technology. And that our steel mills are producing just as much steel with a relative relative skeleton crew.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upsho ... .html?_r=0

A universal wage will only do much. Look at Chicago: Bored, low income and access to guns.

 

[Lynca]

Shinzakura[/url]":277vwmko]

metafor[/url]":277vwmko]In a way, we already have a form of Basic Income. It's just not a single program and it doesn't directly give money to people.

The DoD gets around 800B/year and a lot of that goes towards either employing military personnel or giving money for defense contractors to employ people.

The Federal bureaucracy employs something like 3M people as well.

In the age of automation, those jobs will be the slowest to be cut, maybe even never cut at all. Essentially taking tax money and paying people to do busywork with little productivity.

I beg to differ. I work in Government (disclosure: writing this from my desk at the US Fish & Wildlife Service during lunch) and the policy here is to hire one person for every three departures and it's been that way for years. I've heard similar from other friends in other agencies, including the military. And it's only going to get deeper in cuts in the next administration.

Granted, maybe this isn't happening at the state and local levels (or other nations, if you mean government in general), but I can assure you it's happening here in DC.

The problem is that the money is getting shifted to contractors, who only get paid 2/3 of what we government employees are, but whose positions cost 1.3-plus times more for the government to pay contracting companies.

From a State perspective, they've been doing attrition rates like this here for over a decade.

It's a huge age gap now.