Most Government Workers Replaceable by Robots, but would Robots Accept the Humiliation?

[JimBowie1958]

Yep, it looks like when we are discussing the low skilled jobs that the first wave of androids would replace, one cannot ignore the simplistic work done by many government workers who basically just shuffle paper.

When one includes the complex skilled jobs in the next wave following, the estimate is 90% of all government jobs are replaceable by robotic labor.

We are rapidly approaching a time when a Universal Basic Income is going to be required in order to keep stability in our society for all of our sakes.

Most Government Workers Could Be Replaced By Robots, New Study Finds | Zero Hedge

A study by a British think tank, Reform, says that 90% of British civil service workers have jobs so pointless, they could easily be replaced by robots, saving the government around $8 billion per year.

The study, published this week, says that robots are “more efficient” at collecting data, processing paperwork, and doing the routine tasks that now fall to low-level government employees. Even nurses and doctors, who are government employees in the UK, could be relieved of some duties by mechanical assistants.

There are “few complex roles” in civil service, it seems, that require a human being to handle.​

 

[waltky]

A robot took Uncle Ferd's job wringin' farts outta shirt-tails atta dry cleaners...

Will Robots Replace Human Drivers, Doctors and Other Workers?
April 15, 2017 - The impact of automation on U.S. jobs is open to debate. Robots have displaced millions of manufacturing workers, and automation is getting cheaper and more common, raising concerns it will eventually supplant far more workers in the services sector of the economy, which includes everything from truck driving to banking.

University of Virginia Darden School of Business Professor Ed Hess says we are just starting to see automation's impact. "It is going to be broad and it is going to be deep," he said, adding that "tens of millions" of jobs could be at risk. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared already. While some politicians blame trade for the job losses, most economists say automation is mainly to blame as robots do routine factory tasks previously done by humans.

A man uses an automated teller machine (ATM) machine at a shopping center in Yangon, Burma​

Hess calls self-driving cars and trucks a threat to millions of human jobs, and says fast-food workers are also vulnerable, as companies install electronic kiosks to take restaurant orders. McDonalds says displaced workers will be reassigned to other tasks. The professor says research shows nearly half of U.S. jobs could be automated, including retail store clerks, doctors who scan X-rays for disease, administrative workers, legal staffers, and middle managers.

Future of jobs

Starting more than a century ago, advancing technology changed the United States from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy. Displaced farm hands eventually found factory work, but the transition took years. This new transition may also take a time because, Hess says, "We're not going to anywhere produce the number of jobs that we automate." But 50 years of experience in banking shows that while automation may change the industry, it does not necessarily end jobs for humans.

A laser-guided "parking robot" moves to slide under a car at a research and development center in Shenzhen, China​

The first Automatic Teller Machines, or ATMs, were installed 50 years ago, and there are now 420,000 in the United States. International Monetary Fund analysis shows the number of human tellers did not drop, but rose slightly. "Humans were doing mostly service and routine types of tasks that could be converted into more automated tasks," Tremont Capital Group's Sam Ditzion said. But "the humans then became far more valuable in customer service and in sales in these branches." In a Skype interview, Ditzion said that while automation can be "scary," the oversight of ATMs created new kinds of work for "tens of thousands of people."

Automation grows

See also:

Rise of the robots: What advances mean for workers
Sun, 16 Apr 2017 - They may threaten the human workforce, but they are crucial to the modern economy.

It's about the size and shape of a photocopier. Emitting a gentle whirring noise, it travels across the warehouse floor while two arms raise or lower themselves on scissor lifts, ready for the next task. Each arm has a camera on its knuckle. The left one eases a cardboard box forward on the shelf, the right reaches in and extracts a bottle. Like many new robots, it's from Japan. Hitachi showcased it in 2015 and hopes to be selling it by 2020. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world we live in.

Hitachi's prototype robot with two arms​

It is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast. It's not the only robot that can pick a bottle off a shelf - but it's as close as robots have yet come to performing this seemingly simple task as speedily and dextrously as a good old-fashioned human. One day, robots like this might replace warehouse workers altogether. For now, humans and machines run warehouses together.

Rethink Robotics' Baxter robot​

In Amazon depots, Kiva robots scurry around, not picking things off shelves, but carrying the shelves to humans for them to select things. In this way, Kiva robots can improve efficiency up to fourfold. Robots and humans work side-by-side in factories, too. Factories have had robots since 1961, when General Motors installed the first Unimate, a one-armed automaton that was used for tasks like welding. But until recently, robots were strictly segregated from human workers - partly to protect the humans, and partly to stop them confusing the robots, whose working conditions had to be strictly controlled. With some new robots, that's no longer necessary. Take Rethink Robotics' Baxter.

'Reshoring' trend

 

[JimBowie1958]

Automation of most government jobs is a certainty unless we pass laws that disincentivizes it.

I love making up words, though sometimes I merely misspelled them.