The Future. Good or Bad. What do you think?

[apelike]

Quote: "Automation and robotics is going to bring unemployment."

 

It already has but I cant see it getting much worse as what is there left that is easy to automate and will cause wide spread unemployment?

[Mister M]

I think it was Marshall McLuhan who said (in the late 1960s), that the future won't be good or bad, just mediocre. I think he was part of that generation of thinkers who foresaw the rise in technology allowing people to be freed from stultifying work, and more time to be spent on leisure. I think that was part of the optimism of the 1960s thinking.

Only a few years later when neo liberalism was tested to destruction in a number of countries in the 1980s, did his view become an anachronism.

The impact of globalisation, as well as neo liberalism has changed the UK beyond recognition.

I think one of the saddest changes has been the optimism that things will change for the better; and that ordinary people can change society from bottom upwards. The powerful seem to have become more powerful for society to be seen in any other way.

[melthebell]

Quote: "Automation and robotics is going to bring unemployment."

 

It already has but I cant see it getting much worse as what is there left that is easy to automate and will cause wide spread unemployment?

amazons working on a lot, automatic cashier shops, drones for deliveries

 

if all that works out they will have less shop workers, delivery drivers and warehouse workers

[El Cid]

Russia so brazen that they can come to the UK and kill 2 people!

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43295134

 

Didn't North Korea do something similar? Our world is very unstable, Trump setting off trade wars; where will it end.

 

---------- Post added 05-03-2018 at 20:14 ----------

 

Things like marriage and religion, arguably the foundations of community and family life for thousands of years, have gone out of fashion in little more than one generation. Is that important? The nature of relationships seems to be changing too, is that a good thing?

 

 

The tax system is encouraging single families and more children, although capping benefits at 2 children may change that.

[Anna B]

Quote: "Automation and robotics is going to bring unemployment."

 

It already has but I cant see it getting much worse as what is there left that is easy to automate and will cause wide spread unemployment?

 

Automation is creeping up the social scale and will soon be replacing middle class jobs, like accountants, bank workers and even doctors.

Apparently, a lot of reports and the like are now actually written by computers and it's impossible to tell the difference.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/17/rise-of-the-machines-economist_n_4616931.html

Edited March 5, 2018 by Anna B

[mossdog]

I live in Stannington Sheffield 6........you would be a fool not to see how people in this mainly working class village are much "better off" than their recent forebears!

More new motors! foreign holidays! tech toys like mobiles, computers etc etc.

You had to be a millionaire to live like lots do in Stannington when I was younger! Of course credit is a wonderful enabler to live today and pay tomorrow and modern generations are not as scared to take it on as they once were,and while governments spew billions of fake electronic aid into the economies of different countries,so the party will continue!............but collapse of some sort ,devastating or otherwise will come sooner or later as history never fails to tell us!............but we will survive somehow, with or without QE or the EU........because we will have to! best get used to the idea.

[ECCOnoob]

Automation is creeping up the social scale and will soon be replacing middle class jobs, like accountants, bank workers and even doctors.

Apparently, a lot of reports and the like are now actually written by computers and it's impossible to tell the difference.

 

I would agree. In fact in many "white collar" sectors it already has had an impact.

 

But, is it really something to fear. Its evolution. Human society have been doing it for centuries.

 

The great steam powered mechanical horses of the industrial revolution were seen by many as the second coming about to ruin the lives and jobs of millions. We survived.

 

The rapid advancements in the 50s and 60s, a world of valves, blinking lights, unimaginable office machinery, mechanical brains and touch button appliances brought up in the electrical revolution was going to be death of traditional shopping, manufacturing, domestic and commercial life. We survived.

 

The 80s and 90s computer revolution was going to be death of all clerks, pen pushers and typing pools. The end of office administration as we knew it. Millions of people out of work with companies running as a faceless and humanless machine. We survived.

 

Now we are in the internet age. Online world of faceless and (according to some) corrupt mega corporations bringing untold damage to the world.

 

I bet we survive. People adapt. Lose your job. Lose your industry. You move to another one and retrain.

 

People have done it for generations before and they will keep doing it for future generations.

 

I really dont get why people have such doomongering. This is not a new story.

[Mister M]

Automation is creeping up the social scale and will soon be replacing middle class jobs, like accountants, bank workers and even doctors.

Apparently, a lot of reports and the like are now actually written by computers and it's impossible to tell the difference.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/17/rise-of-the-machines-economist_n_4616931.html

 

I think in the 1970s they called it 'creative destruction'. I suppose for the poor sods affected it feels anything but 'creative'.

I've got to say though, the recession we've just been through, and the previous one in 1990s, doesn't feel half as brutal or traumatic as the one in the 1980s. Perhaps that's just my memory playing tricks with me.

I think, perhaps, companies have gotten wise to the downside of laying people off, en masse. Instead many have gone part time , or taken a big pay cut.

[I1L2T3]

Quote: "Automation and robotics is going to bring unemployment."

 

It already has but I cant see it getting much worse as what is there left that is easy to automate and will cause wide spread unemployment?

 

Loads of stuff.

 

Some of the things I’ve seen in IT automation are quite incredible. We’ve installed agents on peoples’ computers in some of our offices and they record everything thousands of users do. That gets fed to central servers that have self learning AI that looks for patterns and common activities. The AI can then produce routines that replace manual human activities. The thing is learning all the time, about all the staff. It can tell us who is the most productive, who is the quickest at tasks, who spends the most time doing non-work tasks (and what they are doing), who has the most idle time etc... we can tell it to learn about all these things and give us a league table of workers.

 

Quite scary stuff, and this is jus the start. It’s just getting going

 

If I was in insurance, research, accountancy, programming, systems admin etc... I’d be worried about my career 10 years from now.

[Anna B]

I would agree. In fact in many "white collar" sectors it already has had an impact.

 

But, is it really something to fear. Its evolution. Human society have been doing it for centuries.

 

The great steam powered mechanical horses of the industrial revolution were seen by many as the second coming about to ruin the lives and jobs of millions. We survived.

 

The rapid advancements in the 50s and 60s, a world of valves, blinking lights, unimaginable office machinery, mechanical brains and touch button appliances brought up in the electrical revolution was going to be death of traditional shopping, manufacturing, domestic and commercial life. We survived.

 

The 80s and 90s computer revolution was going to be death of all clerks, pen pushers and typing pools. The end of office administration as we knew it. Millions of people out of work with companies running as a faceless and humanless machine. We survived.

 

Now we are in the internet age. Online world of faceless and (according to some) corrupt mega corporations bringing untold damage to the world.

 

I bet we survive. People adapt. Lose your job. Lose your industry. You move to another one and retrain.

 

People have done it for generations before and they will keep doing it for future generations.

 

I really dont get why people have such doomongering. This is not a new story.

 

Actually, it has the potential to be very good for us if it is handled in the right way. Who wouldn't want a machine to do all the boring stuff for us? And output would still be the same if not better. So the money would still be coming in, if not more. BUT, it's what happens to that money that's the problem (isn't it always.) Should it go to the few, the factory owners, or be shared among the many, particularly the ones who have been replaced by the machine and lost their jobs?

 

Look at it this way: 10 men build 10 cars

10 cars are sold.

1 robot builds 10 cars, 10 men are unemployed.

10 cars are still sold.

Profits increase because 10 men's wages are saved. But who should get the profits? At the moment it's going to the manufacturer (the rich getting richer,) but then, robots don't buy cars, so he has to bear that in mind....

 

I don't doubt that we'll survive, but what will it be like? Are we going to have a society of the few, priviledged super-rich, and nearly everyone else picking up the crumbs in dire poverty (like the Hunger Games?)

Some would say that's the way the world is going already, and it's only going to get worse as more and more people are engulfed by unemployment and poverty. Others think that with a bit of creative thinking and strategic planning the world could be improved for everyone.

Your vision of the future depends on new industries / jobs being created, but this is not a revolution like any that has gone before it. To compare it with the industrial revolution is fatuous. Most new industries will be designed and industrialised for robots to do.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Anna B