The future with regards to technology is moving at an incredibly fast pace. Massive tech companies are pumping billions of dollars into projects to become the first to crack any number of upcoming future technologies. Such as Artificial Intelligence, Gene editing, Autonomous vehicles and the list goes on.
Sadly these huge advances in technology come at a price and that price is humans jobs.
The automation of human activity in society is already well underway with self service checkouts, robots making cars and running entire factories themselves. Amazons warehouse's are run by autonomous robots who whizz around and bring shelves full of products to human workers who then pack them for delivery (in a box which has been pre pricked by a computer programme). Surly it won't be long before they have robots that also pack the products as well and don't forget Amazon is already experimenting with drones to make home deliveries.
) Tesla, Uber and Google to name a few are already making huge steps in the race to make the worlds first fully autonomous self driving cars which requires zero human interaction.
) Dubai has recently introduced autonomous drones that can transport humans anywhere up to 23 minutes away.
Then theres Artificial Intelligence. Google's AlphaGo has already proved it can beat humans when it comes to playing the extremely complex game Go.
"AlphaGo is the first computer program to defeat a professional human Go player, the first program to defeat a Go world champion, and arguably the strongest Go player in history"
Quote from Googles DeepMind page.
So what has AI winning a game of GO got to do with my job you ask? Well in Japan an Insurance firm recently made 34 employees redundant and replaced them with IBM's Watson Explorer AI as it deemed the AI was more cost effective as it made less errors than humans and could carry out the work at much faster speeds.
Machine learning has already proved it can beat human doctors at diagnosing heart attacks and it's skills are only going to improve.
It seems that robotics is not advancing as fast as AI therefore the brains are in place but there are no bodies for them to control. Honda's Asimo is one of worlds most advanced robots but I can't see it working on a construction site anytime soon.
That doesn't mean construction workers are safe from technology though as 3D printers are now capable of printing an entire house in 24 hours. The inventor Nikita Chen-yun-tai has plans on using this technology on Mars.
I like to see the positives instead of the negatives and with a little luck, if automation takes over 90% of human jobs there will be a system in place which means we won't have to worry about loosing our jobs, as the current system would simply collapse if 10% of the world made autonomous products and the other 90% had no jobs and therefore no money to pay for such luxury.
Here's to spending our days being driven to a beach by a self driving car, with an Asimo butler serving us drinks, an AI doctor checking we are ok and a hot pizza on the way in a drone.
We can dream :)
This topic has been coming up more and more where I work. (Retail) And it is definitely kinda scary to think about. It does seem like some sort of UBI will be necessary in the future. But then again what will the point of money be if everything is made and distributed autonomously? The machines harvest the materials, create the product, ship and stock the the shelves. Where is the "cost" at that point? Even maintenance could become automatic. So really just the ideas or new inventions is all we need to think of and tell the machines to make them. And even this could become automatic at some point.
It will surely be a progression of things. First a UBI for all the displaced workers at the bottom. Then we will all train to become machine repairmen to keep things running smoothly. Then we will all become thinkers to come up with the next cool idea for our machines to create. Then.... well I guess it could go a few different ways good or bad. We all start living life for the enjoyment of it all and to be social and creative and loving etc. kinda like steemit ;-) .... or we all become lazy do nothing slobs that take life for granted and just wither/waste our days away.
Until perhaps we start to venture out into the universe and then who knows what will happen.
Yeah, it's a crazy thing when you think about it. Could either be the best thing ever or the worst. I didn't even go into quantum computers in my post but that is another massive advance in technology.
I was thinking about the same topic... it's great that we'll have more accurate heart attack diagnosis and I think autonomous driving vehicles have a lot of potential for reducing car accidents as well as making it easier to get around for those who cannot or choose not to drive.
To help provide income for displaced workers, people have been discussing and actually running pilot tests on Universal Basic Income. UBI is basically the concept that the government pays all of its citizens a minimum income to pay for basic needs. The good of UBI is that it should help reduce hunger and homelessness, as well as provide people with the luxury of following their dreams without worrying about starving. I'm not sure where the funding is going to come from though...maybe more taxes.
I totally agree that universal income is the way forward. Finland runs this way now and many are looking at this model as we look to the future and automation. Thanks for the upvote. Followed you.
Do you mean the Finnish government already pays all of its citizens a certain amount of income? If so, that's really cool!
Sorry I meant Finland are running the pilot tests you mentioned in your post. Under the current test there are 2,000 people who each receive 560 euros every month. And the trial is for two years.
Thanks for clarifying! It'll be interesting to see what we can learn from these pilot studies.
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STOPSo true and the blockchain has to potential to wipe out any kind of middle man job such as compliance or freight forwarding, isnane how fast it is all moving! Good post! Upvoted and followed!
Good point about the implications of blockchain. Followed you also. Thanks for the upvote.
I feel pretty safe... Not too worried about machines replacing the musicians or the bloggers any time soon.
Yes I think your safe there. I think the creative jobs like yours will be among the safest.
@somecoolname yes, the saudi monarchs appear to be racing forward with the 4th industrial revolution script!