Originally, this was going to be post 10,000. I found I was too crazy busy to finish the writing in time. I am simply overwhelmed by what I have to do. However, one month after post 10,000, I am posting this. My latest crazy thought: what to do about the Robopocalypse.
As I get older, there have been a lot of things which have been weighing on my mind. The future has weighed on my mind. This has been the case since as far back as when I was 10 and we moved to Los Alamos on the conscious level and back even further because was always thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up: the first time I remember answering that question was when I was 4 and I wasn't even asked, I just spontaneously told my parents in the car I wanted to be a doctor on the way back from the beach in Santa Barbara. That rapidly switched to paleontologist and stuck until I was 10 and my aunt gave me the book on Lucy by Dr White. I didn't turn out to be a paleontologist at all, but my passion for Deep Time, human origins and all things paleo didn't fade. I do find it interesting my consideration of the future blossomed at the same time I was digging into the origins of humanity.
Recently I have been considering the future but in very specific ways. The first is through my involvement in the aerospace industry, GLXP and NASA. What Noel calls my attempts to build yesterday's tomorrow. However, through my discussions with Noel, Carlos, James & Doug, I have also been considering the future in another manner, the coming impact of robotics and information technology on the economy What I have been calling the Robopocalypse. Why did I call it that? Because I was ribbing Noel over his concerns about the future economy. He is deeply concerned about the future with regards to the economy and automata. A number of economists and futurists are. I thought it was silly because even if half the current jobs disappeared, it would not be overnight and it would be a transition not unlike what happened at the end of world war two when 50% of the country had been employed in agriculture (Agriculture now employs 1/2 percent, btw). However, as I have read and considered more, I do think there will be problems. And it will take a rather different approach to address them.
Let's set out Noel's worries.
The Jobs at Risk
This will not be a comprehensive list, but it touch on some obvious problems. In fact, let's limit this to seven categories.
1. Driving.
2. Fast Food
3. Janitorial
4. Construction
5. Manufacturing
6. Cashiers
7. "Movers" (longshoremen, warehouse workers, etc)
There you have 25.31 million plus jobs which are in danger and probably will be replacing in the next two decades at the latest. The labor force in the United States is 156.4 million!
You're looking at an implosion of at least 1/6th of all jobs in the United States just from those categories. There will likely be more. This is doubly the case since Watson and its buddies (machine learning based software bots) are being developed and they have implications for other, non labor workers. Especially vulnerable are the assistants and secretaries, as the technology behind Siri and Cortana improve.
You are looking at a potential unemployment not seen since at least the Great Depression - and possibly even matching the Great Depression! -assuming these people cannot be trained for other jobs. The crux of the problem is though the jobs they could easily be trained for are, well, gone.
This is why Noel et al are very nervous about the Robopocalypse. He is concerned about the fact that capital would supplant labor: you can buy a machine with money and it'll keep working until it breaks, which case you can get another one. That requires a lot of money and what we call the middle class even if we have jobs will not be able to afford it. Never mind the lower or working classes. This would leave us in a virtual state of feudalism. Those with money keep it and get more. Those without ... well. sucks to be us.
So what do we do about it? We can't let this come about, can we? We certainly can't let millions starve! We definitely cannot let a return of feudalism, even a techno feudalism, take place.
So, what to do?
There are multiple solutions. They range from the ludditical to utopian (for the silly responses) to even inspired by Milton Friedman of all people.
That will be covered in the next Crazy Thoughts Post.
As I get older, there have been a lot of things which have been weighing on my mind. The future has weighed on my mind. This has been the case since as far back as when I was 10 and we moved to Los Alamos on the conscious level and back even further because was always thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up: the first time I remember answering that question was when I was 4 and I wasn't even asked, I just spontaneously told my parents in the car I wanted to be a doctor on the way back from the beach in Santa Barbara. That rapidly switched to paleontologist and stuck until I was 10 and my aunt gave me the book on Lucy by Dr White. I didn't turn out to be a paleontologist at all, but my passion for Deep Time, human origins and all things paleo didn't fade. I do find it interesting my consideration of the future blossomed at the same time I was digging into the origins of humanity.
Recently I have been considering the future but in very specific ways. The first is through my involvement in the aerospace industry, GLXP and NASA. What Noel calls my attempts to build yesterday's tomorrow. However, through my discussions with Noel, Carlos, James & Doug, I have also been considering the future in another manner, the coming impact of robotics and information technology on the economy What I have been calling the Robopocalypse. Why did I call it that? Because I was ribbing Noel over his concerns about the future economy. He is deeply concerned about the future with regards to the economy and automata. A number of economists and futurists are. I thought it was silly because even if half the current jobs disappeared, it would not be overnight and it would be a transition not unlike what happened at the end of world war two when 50% of the country had been employed in agriculture (Agriculture now employs 1/2 percent, btw). However, as I have read and considered more, I do think there will be problems. And it will take a rather different approach to address them.
Let's set out Noel's worries.
The Jobs at Risk
This will not be a comprehensive list, but it touch on some obvious problems. In fact, let's limit this to seven categories.
1. Driving.
This includes taxis, truckers and the like: these are all people involved with driving and delivering goods or people. There are 223,000 taxi drivers and chauffeurs in the United States. There are 1,273,000+ delivery drivers in the US. There are 653,300 bus drivers in the US. There are 1,700,000+ truckers in the US. You are looking at an area of employment of around 4 million people in the United States, not including part timers like Uber drivers and whatnot. With the coming of the self driving car technologies, these jobs are all most likely to go away.
2. Fast Food
There are 4,438,000+ people working as waiters and servers. 2,148,000 worked as cooks. Of those 4.5 million (+/-) 3.6 million were working in the fast food industry. With the advent of the burgertron and the like, you are likely to see those jobs go away. Or at least the fast food portion.
3. Janitorial
There are 2,324,000 people working as janitors. There are 1,434,000 people working in house cleaning. The bots are coming for their 3.7 million jobs, too.
4. Construction
Construction equipment operators total around 409,700. There are 902,000 carpenters. There are 229,000 masons (brick and concrete). There are 1,284,000 construction laborers. Plus another associated ~600,000 others (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). You're looking at around 3.5 million jobs there.
5. Manufacturing
Assembly line workers are about 1,755,000 strong. Machine operators are about 1,013,000. Painting and coating? 149,000. Welders? 357,000. Machinists? 476,000. That's another 3.75 million jobs.
6. Cashiers
There are 3,338,000 cashiers in the country.
7. "Movers" (longshoremen, warehouse workers, etc)
There are 3,428,000 of them.
There you have 25.31 million plus jobs which are in danger and probably will be replacing in the next two decades at the latest. The labor force in the United States is 156.4 million!
You're looking at an implosion of at least 1/6th of all jobs in the United States just from those categories. There will likely be more. This is doubly the case since Watson and its buddies (machine learning based software bots) are being developed and they have implications for other, non labor workers. Especially vulnerable are the assistants and secretaries, as the technology behind Siri and Cortana improve.
You are looking at a potential unemployment not seen since at least the Great Depression - and possibly even matching the Great Depression! -assuming these people cannot be trained for other jobs. The crux of the problem is though the jobs they could easily be trained for are, well, gone.
This is why Noel et al are very nervous about the Robopocalypse. He is concerned about the fact that capital would supplant labor: you can buy a machine with money and it'll keep working until it breaks, which case you can get another one. That requires a lot of money and what we call the middle class even if we have jobs will not be able to afford it. Never mind the lower or working classes. This would leave us in a virtual state of feudalism. Those with money keep it and get more. Those without ... well. sucks to be us.
So what do we do about it? We can't let this come about, can we? We certainly can't let millions starve! We definitely cannot let a return of feudalism, even a techno feudalism, take place.
So, what to do?
There are multiple solutions. They range from the ludditical to utopian (for the silly responses) to even inspired by Milton Friedman of all people.
That will be covered in the next Crazy Thoughts Post.
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