Carney 15m jobs to go in UK due to automation

[Anna B]

I'm not a teacher at all, but I still think that's another area where the human touch will always be required.

 

That is until they start inserting memory chips in brains loaded with all the information needed...

 

---------- Post added 06-12-2016 at 16:13 ----------

 

The good thing about robots is that they don't take up valuable housing stock, hospital beds and school places.

 

That doesn't matter. There won't be fewer people, just poorer people.

[aa2900]

That is until they start inserting memory chips in brains loaded with all the information needed...

 

Yes I could see how that would be a game changer. Do they do that a lot round your way?

[Anna B]

200 years ago most people were employed in fields and such. The worked very long hours for just barely enough to survive on for a few decades. Automation and machinery brought that to an end, yet we do not operate with 90% unemployment. How do you reconcile these facts with your view of this matter?

 

The Agrarian revolution preceded (just) the industrial revolution.

 

Pre agrarian revolution it took 9 people to produce the food required for 10.

 

That reduced to 1 person being able to produce the food required for 10 with the help of new inventions such as Jethro Tull's seed drill and more advanced farming and husbandry methods.

 

Those 9 unemployed people were then available to migrate into the newly developing towns and cities to work in the new industries and factories which were also a new idea. Britain grew in prosperity and that allowed it the money to develop the cities with the necessary things like sewerage systems, housing and clean water. Without that money for social development (and a social conscience,) it would have been a very different story.

 

That's what's missing this time round, with people like Phillip Green taking all the money for himself at the expense of his workers. Where are the philanthropists now? Or for that matter the unions who fought every step of the way for improvements to the worker's lot? And where are the new, labour intensive, big ideas?

 

You really can't compare the two.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Anna B

[Bob Arctor]

Same here (although we do the same job, largely, of course!)

 

Education is so vital that it's abhorrent for people to waste it in my view, particularly when it's free in this country.

 

But if we all had PhDs some of us would still be stacking shelves for minimum wage don't you think? Because it needs doing and supermarkets will only pay so much.

[crazyhorse]

Having a background in computing, and with a young family, I ponder this a lot...

 

Since I left university back in 1989 with a qualification in a subject that would apparently never become obsolete (Computing), I have seen many things change and also known much that was promised, but never arrived, despite being only "10 years around the corner"...

 

The Internet went mainstream and spawned a whole new industry...

Computer languages became fashionable and then died in obscurity...

Software development grew and was then outsourced to India...

Artificial Intelligence was promised and failed to materialise...

Speech recognition was promised and is still in its infancy...

New strategies were invented, made obsolete and then rediscovered again...

 

My thoughts on things already mentioned:

Driverless cars...will never become mainstream in a complex, real world road environment. Too many elderly pedestrians/kids and cyclists to crash into.

You must never de-skill the human supervisor with the application of technology...same with airline pilots becoming so reliant on the computers, that they forget how to react when that technology is taken away.

People will be seduced into trusting the technology, start tapping their phone when they should be monitoring the car and something unexpected will occur with fatal results.

 

Artificial Intelligence...will never be fully realised.

Strictly definable problems will benefit from increased raw computing power, speed and some clever programming, but a machine will never replace an adaptive, creative, human brain...despite what filmmakers imagine.

 

Robots.

Will become more commonplace, but again for strictly definable requirements. A human backup however, will always be required.

As a hobby I dabble in a little astronomy and have over time tried to automate and remote control a lot of what I do.

Problem is human interaction is always required at some point...cables get damp and don't work, machines crash and need restarting etc.

The technology is dumb (just circuits and flashing lights) and needs a human to guide.

 

Also as someone mentioned, there is the elephant in the room - energy.

More automation, more computers, require more energy. It is true that smart devices and networks can play a part in reducing this...but we are still up against the fundamental problem of climate change.

The dreamer in me says we should install a vast planetary, renewable energy grid (solar arrays in deserts, tidal, wave and nuclear power)...but

I fear that humans are not capable of making longer term investments in their future and think only of short term profit (well the economists running the planet do)

Plus their egos get in the way and they always fail to recognise the dangers in their grand plans.

 

Then importantly there is the human itself...

As someone has rightly stated...to take away someone's job is to take away a very large part of who they are.

Humans need activity and a purpose beyond daily survival.

Men need this especially...I am always looking for a new project to fix something that doesn't work as I want it to...and I reckon I am not alone in this.

If you take away someone's job, some will throw their energies into creative new directions, but some will wither and start to succumb to anger or depression.

Just take a look at retired people, or long term unemployed...some handle it well, others don't.

I often think we should be prepared to support some "economically" unviable industries, purely for the benefits they provide to people in the form of a purpose and a benefit to the communities they reside in. Life is not all about economics...other things are much more important...self respect being one.

I think what remains important is the ability to put the technology aside and think.

Creative solutions are needed in all aspects of life and what I have found over the years is that simple solutions work best.

Humans will always be excellent at using their imaginations...for good or bad.

 

Finally, there is the negative impact of rapid change.

You would think that I would be well placed to thrive in today's environment of rapid technological change?

Not so...nobody uses the programming languages I learnt in the 80s and if they did, the work would now be in India...still done by a human, but not an expensive, Western one like me.

I have a whole bookcase of technical books...however, by the time I learn one "new" skill, it is obsolete...so I no longer buy any.

Surprisingly, I also nurture serious Luddite tendencies...from my formative years in the pre Internet, pre Mobile Age.

Smartphone - refuse to have my own. Use a work one, but it is turned off at 5pm and I would chuck it in the river if I could - my evening is for me and my family, not for unpaid 4th line support.

I still use HiFi equipment from the 1980s and 90s, because it is well designed and was built to last by UK and Japanese companies...sadly no longer the case with so much planned obsolescence these days.

Don't have an iPod...still have a Minidisc player instead.

Social Media accounts - no way. I come from a generation that talks with people eye to eye and only talks when it has something useful to say.

But to contradict that, I also look back fondly to an age when we used to build things in this country...real things, like supersonic airliners, nuclear power stations, innovative trains...we even had a space program once.

All gone now. Sacrificed to bean counters, bankers, politicians and other assorted tossers...well versed in Politics, Philosophy and Economics or the Classics, but hopeless at managing a technological society.

 

Most importantly my attitude has changed. Things that seemed really important 30 years ago are no longer important to me. I speak my mind more now and I treat all new technology and the companies behind it with a healthy suspicion and try to focus on what is really important...family, friends and community.

 

My thoughts anyway.

[unbeliever]

But if we all had PhDs some of us would still be stacking shelves for minimum wage don't you think? Because it needs doing and supermarkets will only pay so much.

 

That's taking it a bit far. At least for now.

If we were all more qualified, we'd all be more economically productive. i.e. An hour of everybody work would be worth more in purely economic terms. As a result we'd all be paid better. That's really how it works.

[Anna B]

That's taking it a bit far. At least for now.

If we were all more qualified, we'd all be more economically productive. i.e. An hour of everybody work would be worth more in purely economic terms. As a result we'd all be paid better. That's really how it works.

 

That's not how it works at all.

 

The idea that people are paid what they're worth went out the window long ago. If that were true care workers would be the most essential workers and paid accordingly, while bean counters, accountants and the like could easily be replaced (and soon will be) by computers.

[unbeliever]

That's not how it works at all.

 

The idea that people are paid what they're worth went out the window long ago. If that were true care workers would be the most essential workers and paid accordingly, while bean counters, accountants and the like could easily be replaced (and soon will be) by computers.

 

You're talking about moral worth. I'm talking about economic worth. This was blatantly obvious from what I wrote.

[Anna B]

You're talking about moral worth. I'm talking about economic worth. This was blatantly obvious from what I wrote.

 

Some of the best paid jobs are the ones that are going to be replaced: Accountants, doctors even judges (there's a test going on right now to see if that's viable and so far the results say it is.)

 

You forget that in a hard pressed economy, the more expensive workers that can be replaced, will be replaced by the cheaper method. And from what I read most jobs will fall into that catagory. Mark Carney, in his speech, particularly noted it's the middle classes (white collar jobs) that are most at risk.

[sgtkate]

Some of the best paid jobs are the ones that are going to be replaced: Accountants, doctors even judges (there's a test going on right now to see if that's viable and so far the results say it is.)

 

You forget that in a hard pressed economy, the more expensive workers that can be replaced, will be replaced by the cheaper method. And from what I read most jobs will fall into that catagory. Mark Carney, in his speech, particularly noted it's the middle classes (white collar jobs) that are most at risk.

 

So then perhaps people will start being paid for their value. If 'overpaid' people can be replaced then the ones left clearly can't be easily replaced by machine and therefore can argue they are more valuable demanding higher salaries.