The thing I have to wonder about the “autonomous taxis” idea, and it’s something I’ve predicted myself, is isn’t the end game of this just… autonomous trains and buses? Or at least shuttles. I mean, sure, you can be by yourself and don’t have to find a seat in a car, no argument. But it seems like once you’ve hit the point that people are ubering taxis everywhere, it would be more cost effective to just replace small transportation with mass transportation. The bonus is that since you can “summon” an autonomous bus it doesn’t need to keep a bus schedule and instead can path the most efficient route through pending requests.
I suppose an argument could be made that in a traffic situation with purely autonomous cars, you don’t need the cars to stop as often as they do now (the cars can all communicate so they only need to stop at intersections for pedestrians or bikes, they can navigate past each other by communicating their velocities and positions). So, in theory, all of these cars that rarely need to stop are overall more time efficient in parallel than a bunch of autonomous buses, but I’m not entirely convinced of it from a cost-effectiveness standpoint.
You must deal with better agents than I do. For the last… eight years or so, it’s been the opposite for me: I’ve only used agents when I’ve been required to do so (corporate travel agency), because apparently I have less problems remembering that Malpensa isn’t in downtown Milan than travel agents do.
I agree. Unless I had the perfect agent who could mindread my preferences. Which I don’t.
The only time they’re more convenient is when there’s a travel screwup and I have limited internet access (or I’m driving.) Like when a blizzard was going to keep me stuck in Detroit from Thursday to Tuesday or Wednesday but the roads were clear. I got on hold (they’re always understaffed for handling bad weather) and started driving.
Walmart reported yesterday that they’re going to cut 7000 in-store positions, in invoicing and accounting. The invoicing will be done centrally, but the accounting work is that of counting the cash. So instead of having a person counting the cash, they’re going to use what the article I read called a money recycler. I think it’s something like this. They have one of those at my bank.
It’s already happening. From an efficiency (and thus cost) standpoint it could be better for a city to pay for people’s Uber/Lyft rides than to run a public transportation system.
Anyway, we’re a little lucky in that my wife’s aunt is a serious traveler- like goes on some kind of international trip every 2-3 weeks, and my in-laws usually go on a couple of big trips a year- usually at least one, sometimes two international ones. All of them patronize this particular travel agent that they’ve all dealt with for the 15-20 years since they retired and started seriously traveling. I think actually they may have dealt with her before that for the occasional family vacations as well.
So when we took our trip, we just called her up, and she hooked us up.
If I didn’t know better, I’d assume Malpensa is located near the local landfill. What a grimy dump of an airport…
I work with vocational/placement people regularly. Recently asked a couple what they thought were the likely areas of job opportunities for relatively low-skilled people. They both identified order-picking jobs, opining that the delivery itself would be increasingly automated. I realize someone above mentioned this function being automated. Just offering a couple of datapoints.
Personal opinion, I’d say all kinds of medical/PT/CAN-type jobs. Seems to be an ever-increasing demand/expectation for all manner of health care - especially for the aged/disabled. Tho I can’t imagine how we are going to pay for it all.
You have an oversimplified idea of what brokers do. Besides, most of the MLS data is already available to the public.
I thought the same as you around 1998, when I considered getting my broker license. It seemed obvious that the Internet would supplant live agents. I guessed agents would be gone or seriously depleted in 5-10 years.
Hasn’t happened yet. There are more laws, regulations and required procedures now than ever, and they are constantly changing. It’s a minefield, and not safe for the ignorant. Anyone who is not an attorney or agent already is taking a big and dangerous chance with their finances if they buy or sell real estate without the assistance of an agent.
Just one example. When I bought a house in 1974, it was on a 2 page contract and most of the second page was blank. Now, 30 page Purchase Offers are commonplace. I just signed a mortgage paper stack a half-inch thick for one mortgage. Do you think the average person can interpret all of this wisely without professional assistance?
So far, FSBO (For Sale By Owner) transactions are a minuscule fraction of all sales, and not increasing. There is no upward trend of any significance.
My niece just started college to become a physical therapist, so I hope the job doesn’t get automated. And I don’t see how it can be, to some extent, since you need to work closely with live, functioning human bodies.
No, I meant those were areas of increased jobs. IMO PTs and pain mgmt. clinics are becoming the new chiropractors, in terms of providing all the care you are willing to pay for. Sure, some PT is involved, but the vast majority could be done primarily through home exercises.
We were required to use a travel agent for work, but communication was through an online system not that different from Travelocity etc. The airline piece worked fine. The hotel piece found that all hotels near where I was going were booked, and tried to sneak me into one 15 miles away.
We use travel agents to book cruises, since they are good at finding that last cheap stateroom.