# Have any of your prior jobs been eliminated through automation?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-your-prior-jobs-been-eliminated-through-automation/796398>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [September 15, 2017, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-your-prior-jobs-been-eliminated-through-automation/796398 "2017-09-15T12:54:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![jrsone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jrsone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrsone)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-your-prior-jobs-been-eliminated-through-automation/796398/61 "2017-09-20T19:15:29Z")

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> [@jtur88](#):
>
> Yeah, I was a disc jockey. On a 6-hour weekend shift, I’d have to start planning a 2-minute pee break 20 minutes in advance. Now, drive by a radio station on a weekend, there are no human bodies inside. A computer is fitting ads into a satellite music feed.

I worked at 2 radio stations, one as a disc jockey, another as a board operator as well as the occasional commercial spot.

Both stations are feeds now.

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**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-your-prior-jobs-been-eliminated-through-automation/796398/62 "2017-09-20T21:34:07Z")

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> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> …Another task that’s surely been automated is cite-checking of legal briefs - that is, going through and verifying that the cites to court decisions hadn’t been reversed or had their applicability narrowed by subsequent decisions. This involved checking each cite by hand against a standard reference (Shepard’s) which would tell you these things. I don’t keep up with these things, but it’s hard to imagine that that hasn’t been automated for a couple of decades by now…

Nowadays, you look cases up online. Sometimes, there’s a little flag next to the case heading. Yellow means there are cases that merely distinguish the holding; red means there are cases overturning the holding. Click on the flag and you get the list.

So, yeah, the manual task of looking the case up in Shepard’s is a thing of the past (but still necessary when I first clerked in the mid 1990s).  
…  
I haven’t seen it mentioned, but tollbooth operator is a job that has been replaced by automation. I was looking at a parking garage budget the other day (long, boring story), and the payroll dropped in half in 2010, because they replaced the guys who sat in the booth with a payment machine and an automated arm.

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**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-of-your-prior-jobs-been-eliminated-through-automation/796398/63 "2017-09-20T21:37:04Z")

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Tollbooth operators are still in place at the Austin, TX airport. It’s a good thing too as we need an operator to pass us through (DH is a disabled veteran and gets free parking but a supervisor has to verify it and open the gate.) It’s true there are some automated lines but there have been at least three operators on duty each time I have been there.

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