# Professions that will cease to exist in the future due to automation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2015, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530 "2015-01-11T06:44:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/21 "2015-01-12T19:22:45Z")
> [@Uniqueorn](#): > > I wonder: what about programmers? If you set the requirements properly and give them access to a growing library of code, couldn’t machines create new programmes much faster and with fewer bugs than human programmers? Or would that automatically lead to the singularity? The big reduction will be, and has been, in areas where the users have a very limited set of commands, so that stuff that used to be custom code can now be packages. Like spreadsheets or canned databases. Your standard non-programmer is really bad about thinking in terms of precise requirements. In some cases you can afford to work out every possibility up front, but often you won’t run into weird cases until the coding has begun. However better languages reduce the nitty gritty detail work a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/22 "2015-01-12T19:26:02Z")
> [@fisha](#): > > Accountants, translation, editing, SEO, have been outsourcing to India, China, etc, for years. 50 years ago my mother had a job as a bookkeeper, entering and balancing ledger information. She had an adding machine and that was about it. I think that job category is gone. Some of the headline writing for the local paper got moved to India. Small problems like them thinking that Ohio was in the Northwest. ---
**Author:** ![AdamF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/adamf/32/6246_2.png) [@AdamF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdamF)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/23 "2015-01-13T18:28:09Z")
Professional drivers will decline dramatically. Bus drivers, cab drivers, and long-haul truck drivers will probably be the first to go. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/24 "2015-01-13T20:11:23Z")
> [@bugsy88](#): > > I can understand telemarketers/retail workers. However, I was of the understanding that accounting isn’t simply plug and chug, and involves a lot more subjectivity that is beyond the grasp of computers. Is the Economist mistaken? > > I’m especially interested in hearing from professionals in the accounting field, both public and private. What are the prospects of the profession disappearing or becoming greatly diminished in terms of need, due to the increasing sophistication and ability of computers? Accounting is never going away. NEVER. When the world has been nuked and cockroaches are eating the fruitcake, there will be an accountant there, keeping track of the fruitcake inventory. However, accounting is changing. There is ever-decreasing need for people to manually enter data, or to manually move data from one place to another. Those people lower on the totem pole may find themselves needing to update their skills. There will always be a demand for the people who interpret the laws, policies, procedures, etc. and make sure that computers and other automated systems are working right. Because accounting standards and laws are both continually changing, there’s simply no eliminating accountants at that level. A lot of the accounting work that exists today is for people to resolve or reconcile what the computer does. For example, I talked to someone who spends all her time at Amazon reconciling returns. She only handles the 0.01% of transactions that somehow trip up the computer, and require a person to figure out what happened wrong and make the appropriate corrections manually. Since no computer is ever perfect, you can only eliminate so many people like her. In a way, it’s just like the old assembly line problem. You used to have 1000 guys manually welding car parts together. Now you have 100 guys tending to the robots that do the welding. When you invent robots to fix robots, you’ll still need 10 guys to make sure they don’t turn into SkyNet. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/25 "2015-01-13T21:13:59Z")
Parts of entire professions are gone already or closely following all those type-setters out there; but I would say Marketing is taking a huge hit due in no small part to marketing automation and being able to be everywhere at once. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/26 "2015-01-13T22:48:01Z")
> [@meanoldman](#): > > Automobile body shops / collision repair. If “self-driving” cars also become the norm, there will almost certainly be fewer accidents. And car insurance. With self-driving cars the insurance will be baked into the cost of the car. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/27 "2015-01-14T02:54:12Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Reducing the number of visits thanks to virtual tours certainly. But people don’t buy houses enough so that time efficiency is a big issue. And no one is going to commit to live somewhere until they visit in person. (Think of the fakery possible with an on-line tour, as if staging wasn’t bad enough.) > There is good reason to keep the home owner far from the potential purchaser. As a home seller, there is no way I would want people touring my house without someone, ie a realtor, accompanying them, and no way I’m dumb enough to be the one there when the tour happens. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/28 "2015-01-14T03:41:11Z")
With telemarketers, retail salespersons and real estate agents near the top of the list it seems like there is the view that sales people are not effective in closing sales. Hmm. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/29 "2015-01-14T04:31:53Z")
> [@Uniqueorn](#): > > I wonder: what about programmers? If you set the requirements properly and give them access to a growing library of code, couldn’t machines create new programmes much faster and with fewer bugs than human programmers? Or would that automatically lead to the singularity? It’s strange, but I’ve heard programmers mentioned a number of times in this context recently, but I’d be quite willing to bet money that it will be one of the last things to be fully automated out. For example, consider bugs. I read an article in _New Scientist_ where they still described bugs as being essentially typos. But these kinds of bugs are increasingly rare using high-level languages and modern development environments. Most bugs I encounter now, certainly the ones that can “slip through the net” are just unforeseen consequences of the requirements. It takes true understanding, of meaning, of whatever the software is actually trying to accomplish, to see such problems in advance. When computers can do that there’s not much left humans could do that computers could not. OTOH programming tools are advancing such that there may be a time where someone with no comp sci training could create simple programs as easily as, say, creating a blog. And automated _testing_ is already widespread. Actually this is another good example of how such changes often play out: The number of jobs in testing has actually increased at the same time as productivity has shot up due to the use of automated systems. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/30 "2015-01-14T09:53:44Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Strippers. > > Not the kind you’re thinking of: I’m talking about color separators, the people who would prepare color images for printing by photographing them multiple times through filters. With the advent of digital imaging, you can just skip that whole process. Aren’t strippers already automated? I was a stripper for a few years in the late '60s, and it’s not that complicated that a machine can’t do it. And typesetting: Sure, anyone can sit there, wiggling their fingers over a keyboard, and what comes out is “good enough” today. What’s lost is the art of typography, and nobody cares. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/31 "2015-01-14T09:55:53Z")
Auto mechanics. If the autonomous auto comes along, the wiring and sensors will be, essentially, black boxes - too complex to try to repair. Tires, oil, batteries/fuel will be readily accessible, and dimensions will be standardized (as are bumper heights now) - those are "drive into the bay, press buttons for desired operation, sit tight while your car’s history (and required activities) are downloaded and your account debited. If it can’t be easily accessed from the exterior, it will probably be too expensive to fix. We used to repair TV’s and radios. Now they are throw-aways. Cars are looking like the same. Of course, when people realize that there are 100 cars in that driverless lane going from the same area to the same area, we will re-invent the inter-urban trolley. Programming - yes the “4GL” (for those who remember the debate) are here - your secretary CAN now write programs after a week’s training. If the machines get fast enough and cheap enough, you CAN make a Rube Goldberg-like process work. A clever design will outrun it by a factor of 100 - is that worth paying far? I’m guessing it will be for at least another generation. There will still be functions where we, as humans, will _want_ the “human touch” - marriage really does not need someone saying certain things - just keying in your ssn and birth-issued PIN says “I will/I do/ Why the Hell Not” without further ado. Mortuary - same thing. the morticians got laws passed requiring embalming. They also got the parlor (where the dead were laid out) renamed “living room”. They really have no use except as facilitators of grief. Real Estate folks serve (beyond their own “required by the laws we had passed” functions) serve to reassure us that we are doing the proper thing - in choice, price, etc. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/32 "2015-01-14T11:53:37Z")
Is anything actually fully automated even now? It’s rare to find something that’s actually fully automated. Getting your money out of a machine rather than the bank is one; are there any others? Not including ordering online. > [@pullin](#): > > Food service and prep jobs. > > I have a bet going with one of my friends on which fast food restaurant will be the first to have an entirely robotic workforce (at least one shift). My money’s on Taco Bell, he’s betting on one of the donut places. We both think there will be a limited menu available that’s entirely prepped by machines in 6 or 7 years. Maybe something like a large redbox that customers can use a debit card and get an actual cooked/prepped taco or pastry. Not just a pre-made that’s microwaved. > > So, my guess is fast food and server jobs will see a steep decline, although not “cease to exist” as in the OPs title. I’ve further speculated that my grandkids will only visit restaurants with human servers for special, hi dollar occasions. > > Anecdote: I’ve eaten at two Chili’s restaurants recently that had the menu, ordering, and payment (credit card) via a small wireless screen at the table. The only interaction with a server was when they brought the food. It even printed my receipt after scanning my Ccard. I actually prefer it because I don’t have to wait for the server when I want to order or pay out. I would imagine this greatly reduces the total number of waitstaff required to run the restaurant. I think the number of waitstaff will decrease, but they’ll still be there for reasons other than just making the food. Spain, for example, has automated vending machines that sell burgers. Cooked burgers, not cold sandwiches somehow or other. I do actually trust the machine to make the food as well as a human could, but stepping over and holding out my money or my debit card without a human around felt like a huge risk WRT opportunist thieves. Yeah, we do that with ATMs all the time, but they tend to be out in the open, on the street, so at least there are bystanders and a way for you to run away. Food service is (and has to be for hygiene reasons) going to have to be enclosed in some way. > [@PastTense](#): > > With telemarketers, retail salespersons and real estate agents near the top of the list it seems like there is the view that sales people are not effective in closing sales. Hmm. Yeah, not sure about that either. I get a lot of telemarketer calls for some reason (I am on various DNC lists) and if it’s a robot I just hang up. ---
**Author:** ![l0k1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@l0k1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l0k1)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/33 "2015-01-15T00:54:33Z")
I am an accountant and have been for over 20 years. What the field has seen is much less accounting clerk work. I don’t think the Economist is saying that there will be no more CPAs or CMAs, rather that there will be no more AP Clerks or AR Clerks. When I started in the field in the mid 1990s I processed thousands of invoices a mouth. Three years later that job had been automated. When I left that company after four years the accounting department was 30% smaller but the volume of work going through the department had increased by at least 25%. Accounting used to involve a lot of data entry using technology that lacked the ability to cut and paste. It is a much more efficient field now. The current efficiencies come from taking work like expense reporting out of the accounting department and putting it back to the sales department (or whomever generates a company’s income), or taking coding out of accounting and pushing it back to vendors. Most of this is common sense and soul crushingly boring. The new economy is for me a very exciting time. I have left corporate accounting and now do freelance work for small businesses and non-profits. My standard line is telling people not to waste their creative energies on bookkeeping and tax filing, let me be your staff accountant so that you can do whatever it is that you started your business to do. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/34 "2015-01-15T03:57:38Z")
33 posts and nobody linked to the excellent video [Humans Need Not Apply](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU) yet??? ---
**Author:** ![Peanut\_Gallery](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/838e76/32.png) [@Peanut\_Gallery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanut_Gallery)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/35 "2015-01-15T04:38:57Z")
> [@AdamF](#): > > Professional drivers will decline dramatically. Bus drivers, cab drivers, and **long-haul truck drivers** will probably be the first to go. This is something I have been meaning to ask the Dope in ‘automated car’ threads for some time… Is truck driving going to succumb to the robots? I’m tempted to believe it, but can’t decide. I can see the actual driving-down-the-road part becoming almost fully automated, but there is more to it than that. There is a certain amount of service and supervision required. Even if the truck becomes completely self-driving and self-parking, are we going to allow trucks moving freight around with no human supervision/backup? Is the software going to secure loads onto flatbeds? Handle the customer interaction and transfer of products? Maybe all that is possible one day, but _how long will it be_ before humans can be removed from this industry? I have considered driving a truck as a backup career, and hope it sticks around at least 20 years more, in whatever form… I can see all of the driving professions becoming much more automated/assisted by bots, but not taking place without a human around at all. What sez the Dope? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/36 "2015-01-15T05:01:55Z")
> [@Peanut\_Gallery](#): > > This is something I have been meaning to ask the Dope in ‘automated car’ threads for some time… Is truck driving going to succumb to the robots? I’m tempted to believe it, but can’t decide. I can see the actual driving-down-the-road part becoming almost fully automated, but there is more to it than that. There is a certain amount of service and supervision required. Even if the truck becomes completely self-driving and self-parking, are we going to allow trucks moving freight around with no human supervision/backup? Is the software going to secure loads onto flatbeds? Handle the customer interaction and transfer of products? Maybe all that is possible one day, but _how long will it be_ before humans can be removed from this industry? I have considered driving a truck as a backup career, and hope it sticks around at least 20 years more, in whatever form… > > I can see all of the driving professions becoming much more automated/assisted by bots, but not taking place without a human around at all. What sez the Dope? All driving professions, except possibly those that convey status to the employer, are done soon; watch the video I linked in post#34. Once the infrastructure is in place, human pilots are done too. [Look at what we can already teach quadcopters to do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ). Combine that with the ability to learn like [Baxter](http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/) has, and employed human pilots and drivers will be as numerous as working horses, IMO. ETA: BTW, Baxter costs just $25,000 for the basic model. I suspect his software is being licensed by many companies as well, and soon will permeate our culture. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/37 "2015-01-15T13:10:19Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > As a home seller, there is no way I would want people touring my house without someone, ie a realtor, accompanying them, and no way I’m dumb enough to be the one there when the tour happens. That’s fine. I’ll be happy to pay you a fee per house to show it. But, I’m not going to let you negotiate for me, or charge me 3% of the closing price. And you don’t need to be licensed if all you’re going to do is walk me through a house. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/38 "2015-01-15T13:22:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > In theory, a sufficiently abstract programming language would do this. I mean, something simple enough for someone to write English-like sentences to describe what they want the program to do (or how they want it changed). COBOL shall rise again!!! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/39 "2015-01-15T13:50:22Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > We’ve seen a big change in the legal profession due to automation. It used to be that there were a lot of lawyers at the entry level whose job was to search through books of prior case law and the like to answer questions about ongoing cases. Once search engines showed up, there was no further need for people to do that sort of job. > > I suspect that the accounting world is similar. Not everyone will be automated away, but a lot of the people whose jobs can be automated will have trouble finding employment in the future. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Yes and no. We no longer have a big physical library, but I rely heavily in the articling students and junior lawyers in our office to do the basic research on the interwebs, for two reasons : > > 1. They’re much better at it than i will ever be - as with so many other technical things the young’uns are more attuned to it. > > 2. It frees me to do strategic thinking about the file, drafting the brief, and preparing for court b Junior associate here, and researching case law is like half of my job. The real redundancies in the legal field are in the areas where there’s no particular need for a lawyer to do the work: reviewing and summarizing medical and employment records, calculating wage loss, and so on. We’ve also had an increasing trend towards electronic dockets, which means much less copying, printing and mailing. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530/40 "2015-01-15T14:56:17Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > With telemarketers, retail salespersons and real estate agents near the top of the list it seems like there is the view that sales people are not effective in closing sales. Hmm. I don’t need anyone to “close” a sale for me when I go to the grocery store, I don’t see why they’re needed in other areas. The whole profession is a waste. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-will-cease-to-exist-in-the-future-due-to-automation/709530.md?page=3)