I keep hearing about how automation is going to change our lives but I don’t buy it, I still have to go to work everyday and bust my ass, how is it making/going to make my life better?
Simplistic premise for debate but I am actually curious about the sounding of a new age when I don’t even see it really affecting me.
It has already changed your life. You say you have to “bust your ass” at work, but just how much work is that? 100 hours a week? 80? Because, before the age of automation, it probably would have been.
I’ll limit the time frame from year 2000 onwards
Well, unless you are already in the 1%, your standard of living will decline.
Techs, too.
Permanent, lifelong unemployment is a likely possibility.
Do you shop at Walmart or Target? If so, then automation is already affecting you. Automation has shifted a lot of manufacturing to other countries. For many products, it’s cheaper to pay very low-wage workers than to buy expensive robots.
Do you plan to buy a new car at some point in the future? If so, automation will affect you then, too.
Do you plan to buy a new computer in the future?
I think when most people think of automation, they think of a stereotypical robot sitting at their desk, performing their job duties. Of course, that’s a ludicrous image.
But automation is a lot more general than that.
Just 20 years ago, the job position I currently inhabit was a lot different from what it is today. What takes me a half hour to do (like writing a brief memo) used to take hours because electronic word processors are not as efficient as MS Word (and typewriters even less so). It might take me an hour to make a map that is of publishable quality. Twenty years ago, the person doing my job would have had to delegate that task to the resident GIS person–who more than likely would have a ton of projects waiting in their queue at any given moment. So it would have probably been a week before I’d get something usable back in the olden times. Twenty years ago, writing a well-cited report required spending serious research time in the library trying to track down relevant journal articles. Today, I don’t even have to leave my office to find all the sources I need–most of which are available on the internet for download.
My predecessor’s job duties were a lot more singularly focused than mine are. He wasn’t expected to know how to analyze data or use GIS because he didn’t have enough time in the day to do those things in addition to typing memos. Those more technical tasks were assigned to other people. So I’m doing the job of three people now, and it’s not because I’m smarter than my predecessor. It’s because my predecessor did not have the technology that I have.
Twenty years from now, I think it is likely a person will be doing my job plus two others. It’s hard for me to imagine how this could be, and yet I know it would have been hard for my predecessor to imagine his job morphing into mine.
I was having a similar discussion with my father a week or so ago. I mentioned automation rendering many of us unemployed one day, and he kinda waved me away. Before he retired, he was educator. I guess in his mind, we’ll always need teachers and administrators. And yet he’s the first to run to Google when he wants to learn something new. He teaches online classes. I’m sure he’s a big advocate of technology in the classrooms. Yes, we will always have a need for teachers and administrators, but the demand for them will lessen as people rely more on technology for instruction and information. I think it is quite possible that 20 years from now, the idea that a teacher might have 50 children in his classroom won’t seem that big of a deal because his students will all have personalized instruction programmed into their tablets. And if the school’s workforce is slashed in half, maybe principals can be expected to do the duties previously assigned to vice-principals and curriculum specialists.
We aren’t all going to be employed, but the job landscape will definitely become steeper in many areas.
I’ll try to answer this, but first I’ve got to start my dishwasher and get some clothes out of the dryer.
It already has. Your standard of living is much higher than it would be otherwise.
That could change.
Soon, there may be far, far more people than jobs.
Ask the next unemployed factory worker.
Next time you see a “tour”* of a new factory, notice the all the work stations. Hint: There aren’t any. There may be lines painted on the floor to indicate the areas which need to be kept clear - because that robot will swing through that space.
I came of age in a small mid-west town. One of the companies was a sheet-metal fabricator. I worked there in the summer. Once on a production lathe, the other on a spot-welder.
Needless to say, not only are those jobs no longer there, the company is defunct.
The lathe has been replaced by a CNC machine; the spot-welder by robots - and the robots don’t need the work presented on a horizontal plane - they can twist and turn and deliver the weld just about anywhere. When you see those robots reaching inside the car body and making momentary sparks on the seams, they are putting spot welds in places no human could. The implications of even that seemingly trivial change are enormous - no longer do the pieces need to be small and creating lots of moderate-sized chunks which then need to be bolted together - the whole thing can be made as a single piece. That is why you can put a factory in places where 95% of the population is illiterate - the machines know how to do much, much more than even educated workers could learn.
And yes, another generation or 2 and we WILL need to figure out a new way of distributing wealth - the idea of “Work For It” cannot be applied when there are no jobs to be worked.
The Millennials are seeing this up close. No, they AREN’T buying houses. Yes, they now buy rides, not vehicles.
Yes, they DO all have some self-employment going.
Because houses now cost $500,000 and up. Cars cost as much as their parents or grandparents paid for houses.
And those “good jobs with a large company which you keep all your life and get a generous pension and all the healthcare you need” are EXTINCT.
There explosion of “Student Debt” should not come as a surprise. Nor should the increase in Disability claims.
As long as you can show enrollment in an accredited college for X hours/semester, you can get a good chunk of money. Of course, you are not likely to ever be able to pay off the “loans”, but you do get a roof over your head and food on the table.
What is really scary is the rise of the “Subscription Life” - instead of owning CD/DVD/MP3, we pay a few dollars a month for a “music service” and a few more for “video streaming service”.
Add this to the “No Car - Uber” solution to transportation and you get a generation which owns clothing, a bit of knock-down furniture and wall art.
IOW: The “College Experience” as a life-long mode of living.
And now, even Uber wants to get rid of the troublesome “Drivers” (they are never “people” they are “drivers” - the model is “robot”, not “worker”). After all these folks went out and got nice, late-model sedans in order to have the few pennies Uber paid. Social Security? Unemployment Insurance, Healthcare!!??? Who do these idiots think we are - an employer?
We have to work towards this, not run away from it. There’s no point automating all industry, agriculture and services if no-one can afford to buy anything. So prices of almost everything will need to fall to near zero.
I work in manufacturing. I’ve heard tell, that some of the outside auditors who rate/audit manufacturing companies, will ding the manufacturer if one of the screws on there finished product is aligned exactly so. Meaning, the trench in every screw should be aligned exactly the same way!
I don’t know if that’s true or not but having worked with ISO Auditors and the like for many years, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Sez the guy typing on a computer hooked to the internet on a message board hosted in a data center somewhere and who probably got an automatic response to this post in his or her email. 
Automation isn’t either fantasy or coming reality…it’s here and been here for decades now. Do you get gas? Well, when you got gas did someone come out and pump it for you or did you do it yourself? When you did it yourself (since only old timers like me remember full service), did you pay for it right there at the pump or did you have to go in and pay in cash because they didn’t take credit cards? Just in that one simple thing (i.e. buying gas) there is a host of automation, both that you can see (if you think about it for a few seconds) and that which you don’t, such as all of the logistics of moving the gas to the station, all of the logistics and production in getting the oil from the ground, getting it to the refineries and processing and distilling it. All of that has tons of automation involved. As does basically ever single aspect of your life, assuming you live in a modern industrialized nation like the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc etc.
It’s staggering to hear someone say that they don’t ‘buy’ that automation has changed their lives. I guess you have to be a bit older to understand how far we’ve come in just the last 50 years…or how much further we’ve come from even 100 years ago. Or 200. Automation has changed your life in such profound ways and is so ubiquitous that, apparently, you don’t even realize it. It’s like the water you get by turning on a tap or the light you get from flicking on a switch…ironically, both of which are highly automated systems. Now, whether you think having that sort of thing is a good thing or has made your life better is certainly debatable. A lot of Luddite types would argue that their lives are worse because of a modern lifestyle.
That’s because, frankly, you don’t understand how ubiquitous it is. Basically, there is no aspect of your life or what you do, even if you are retired at home, that doesn’t have automation affecting it. The car you drive, the computer you use, the pervasive infrastructural systems that support all of that…everything is based around automation and expert systems. Everything. All of it. It’s like the force…" It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together".
There are tons of videos of car assembly. One was posted above.
Notice the “Unibody” construction - the “body”, “frame”, “fenders”, “roof panel” all are a single piece, comprised of bits which were held in precise alignment and welded together.
Try to find a video of “automobile assembly line” from the 50’s or 60’s - about the only machines were various hoists and jigs - workers put things together and bolted the parts together.
Go to a Krispy Kreme and see how doughnuts are now made - people load in flour, sugar, yeast, oil, whatever and pick up the finished product.
Now find a recipe for glazed yeast doughnuts. It is quite labor-intensive.
Even your doughnut has been automated.
Have you noticed spell-check? Text editing is now at least partially automated.
The 1% will have to be killed in the street, before they unclench from “MINE! MINE! MINE! ME! ME! ME!”
What’s scary about this? If people prefer Netflix to Comcast, or Spotify to CDs, why is that “really scary”? Seems like the customers are just being presented with additional options: that’s usually a good thing in most people’s eyes.
What good would that accomplish? I saw a headline earlier today that Bill Gates hit a new record of personal fortune. He’s now (allegedly) worth $90 BILLION. That’s an astounding amount of money for one person to have, but, if we killed him in the street and took his entire fortune, it’d fund the current federal government for just over a week. If we distributed his fortune to all Americans equally, we’d all get $275.
Humans Need Not Apply is, IMO, a good (and brief, at 15:00) video piece on the inevitability of automation.
It’s now a couple of years old and I’d be really interested in an update on the specific technology shown and on new developments.
ETA: This video was also brought up in the thread linked by chappachula.