CDZ White Collar Jobs at Risk in Robotics Revolution NOW!

[JimBowie1958]

As far as revenue lost, owners of robots should pay an income tax much like workers have to do. Tariffs were used in this country as a tool to protect and grow industries and subsidize misplaced workers, and it should be done now. Problem is the internationalists like obama and hillary who serve the money masters.
A pretty good read on the subject is "player piano" by Voneggut. The unemployed workers who were replaced by robots were given a stipend by the government so they could survive. Also, someone had to by the products made by the robots. Sounds socialistic I know, but the banks and big business aren't against socialism whenever they're in trouble and get government bailouts.

I agree, and more will still have to be done. Were I in this economy at the age of 20, I would ready for a revolution.

 

[320 Years of History]

That being said, I think your expectations in this regard of staying current on coming technology and meditating on what that implies is a bit unrealistic. We participants on this thread might do that, but Joe Sixpack and his boss will not, EVER.

That may be. It may also be that "Sherry Champagne" may not either. Either way, they will both suffer the consequences of not doing that, and that, IMO, is as it should be. If and when folks who suffer from no constraints to which they were born, and that limit their ability to "read the writing on the wall," learn how to do so and then bother to do so, they should suffer the ills of not having done so. Once they decide they don't like the downsides of their lack of initiative, they'll almost certainly find some. At the very least, "Joe" and "Sherry" will lose a few pounds around the middle. LOL

As a somewhat jocular aside, I'm not particularly worried about "Joe Sixpack" or "Sherry Champagne." Both of them at least have the income to buy their beer and fine wine. It's "Joe and Jill Couch Potato" who disturb and irk me most.

I'm surprised we dont have death sports televised live yet.

LOL

What other approaches do you see as viable realistic alternatives or supplemental activities to a UBI? Robotic Labor taxes? A jobs mongering approach to nationalist economic systems?

I'll answer, but I don't really feel like writing that answer right now. I will write it over the weekend. I also have a "gun topic" follow-on answer to write for another thread this weekend.

P.S.
Have you continued to work your way through that book I mentioned earlier in the week?

 

[Fishlore]

I quite agree with you about the accelerating rate of technological change. Jobs won't be as scarce as uranium because society will collapse in violent revolution before that extreme point is reached, What will happen, I think, is that the basis of job creation will shift from profit making to societal needs.

We need fewer and fewer worker-hours to make anything, including a profit, but society has lots and lots of jobs that it needs done even though they don't make much money. We will pay for those jobs in areas like the environment, education, healthcare and the arts, with money made by robots, It could be a golden age for the human race.

If society collapses in violent revolution, then whats the point of discussing what 'we' will then do. We will have a dictatorship and everything will be out of our hands.

My grammar bad. I should have said "society would collapse..." because we aren't going to get that far. We are already well on the way to a higher minimum wage. We will probably shorten the work week and pay for the costs with higher taxes on the 1% and on banking shenanigans. The right will howl like gut shot panthers but even our senile electoral process can't keep the marjority down forever just to keep the 1% farting through the silk.

 

[JimBowie1958]

My grammar bad. I should have said "society would collapse..." because we aren't going to get that far. We are already well on the way to a higher minimum wage. We will probably shorten the work week and pay for the costs with higher taxes on the 1% and on banking shenanigans. The right will howl like gut shot panthers but even our senile electoral process can't keep the marjority down forever just to keep the 1% farting through the silk.

Not all of the right will howl, only the corporate tools and Losertarians.

 

[Moonglow]

This is karma coming back to bite the hand that bred it fer sher.

Hey, you managers that exported jobs all over the globe; your day is coming too!

The robots set to disrupt white collar work

The jobs most likely to be disrupted by automation will be roles in customer service, office and administration, but other kinds of work will be created.

"The cognitive era will create new jobs, such as robot monitoring professionals, data scientists, automation specialists, and content curators," the report said.

"But the transformation of existing jobs resulting from reengineering a process to use cognitive support — such as turning low-value data entry work to higher-level analyst or customer-oriented roles — will be even more dramatic."

The reason clerical roles will be replaced is because they are highly repetitive and involve processes which are easy to replicate by machine, according to Neil Kinson, chief of staff at robotics firm Redwood Software, which automates back office and administrative processes in finance, supply chain and human resources.

"There was a very well publicized report by Oxford University that ranks your job relative to its likelihood to be automated by 2020," he told CNBC in a phone interview. "Top of the list of those jobs was highly repetitive clerical-type activities.

"Anything that is highly repetitive, that follows a repetitive role and uses some kind of technology, can be automated," he added.

The industrial revolution, who would have thunk it would bring in automation...??

 

[Moonglow]

Yep, as I said in a thread about this the other day. Computer advances keep moving the jobs computers and robots can do up the chain of production. Today we have computer algorithms that can replace paralegals, in ten years a robot will show up to defend his client in court.

Can't be any worse than the majority of those oily hides....

 

[JimBowie1958]

The industrial revolution, who would have thunk it would bring in automation...??

Actually the industrial Revolutions, the first and second, brought in more jobs.

The current so-called Third Industrial Revolution, or Digital Revolution, or Robotics revolution is what is destroying jobs.

Maybe if you put down the reefer once in a while you could keep up, bubba.

 

[Moonglow]

The industrial revolution, who would have thunk it would bring in automation...??

Actually the industrial Revolutions, the first and second, brought in more jobs.

The current so-called Third Industrial Revolution, or Digital Revolution, or Robotics revolution is what is destroying jobs.

Maybe if you put down the reefer once in a while you could keep up, bubba.

I have no problem getting work, and never have...

 

[JimBowie1958]

I have no problem getting work, and never have...

Well, Jeez, not all of us can 'grow our own', dude.

 

[Moonglow]

I have no problem getting work, and never have...

Well, Jeez, not all of us can 'grow our own', dude.

All you have to do to get a job is get a wife, cause after the honeymoon, you don't want to hang around the house anyway....

 

[JimBowie1958]

All you have to do to get a job is get a wife, cause after the honeymoon, you don't want to hang around the house anyway....

I hear that from guys a lot, but all I can say is I got lucky....but she didnt.

She is the best damned thing that ever happened to me, while I am helping her to pass Purgatory and go straight to the Divine presence of God by giving her a cross to bear, but not intentionally.

 

[Picaro]

The population of the U.S. is increasing at 6 times the rate of job creation. Some 85% of those 'new jobs' are part time and require little or no education. It's not rocket science to see that the inane meme of 're-training for the jobs of today' nonsense isn't remotely the 'answer'. The country was on the right track by 1970, birthrate down to a net zero growth and declining, right in line with the massive productivity increases of the 1950's and 1960's. But, that made those who wanted to get rich a lot quicker unhappy, so the immigration flood gates were opened, for the same reasons they were opened in the 19th century; so businessmen could make money a lot faster than they could on their own work, and for no other reason. Nobody gets rich from their own labor, they need to direct as much of the labor and productivity of others into their pockets as they can. Thus exacerbates downturns, increases unemployment, generates overbuilding in the construction industry, etc., etc. And, despite the massive increase in population, it still wasn't enough to satisfy Wall Street, so they got subsidies to ship their capital investments overseas, for even more available and much cheaper labor, and police states to keep their labor problems to non-existent.

The financial sector produces nothing, yet it sucks up the entire productivity gains of the last 60 years into its pocket. They suck up over 80% of income. This is a cycle that crashes sooner or later.; even some of the billionaires are speaking out about how it needs to change, because, as Joe Kennedy said in the 1930's, " I would give up 90% of what I have if I could keep the other 10% left under some kind of law and order."

 

[JimBowie1958]

The population of the U.S. is increasing at 6 times the rate of job creation. It's not rocket science to see that the inane meme of 're-training for the jobs of today' nonsense isn't remotely the 'answer'. The country was on the right track by 1970, birthrate down to a net zero growth and declining, right in line with the massive productivity increases of the 1950's and 1960's. But, that made those who wanted to get rich a lot quicker unhappy, so the immigration flood gates were opened, for the same reasons they were opened in the 19th century; so businessmen could make money a lot faster than they could on their own work, and for no other reason. Nobody gets rich from their own labor, they need to direct as much of the labor and productivity of others into their pockets as they can. Thus exacerbates downturns, increases unemployment, generates overbuilding in the construction industry, etc., etc. And, despite the massive increase in population, it still wasn't enough to satisfy Wall Street, so they got subsidies to ship their capital investments overseas, for even more available and much cheaper labor, and police states to keep their labor problems to non-existent.

The financial sector produces nothing, yet it sucks up the entire productivity gains of the last 60 years into its pocket. They suck up over 80% of income. This is a cycle that crashes sooner or later.; even some of the billionaires are speaking out about how it needs to change, because, as Joe Kennedy said in the 1930's, " I would give up 90% of what I have if I could keep the 10% left under some kind of law and order."

I agree with most of that, but you have to have controled population growth that allows for further expansion of the economy for the next generation.

Stagnant populations create stagnant economies.

 

[Mac1958]

This is karma coming back to bite the hand that bred it fer sher.

Hey, you managers that exported jobs all over the globe; your day is coming too!

The robots set to disrupt white collar work

The jobs most likely to be disrupted by automation will be roles in customer service, office and administration, but other kinds of work will be created.

"The cognitive era will create new jobs, such as robot monitoring professionals, data scientists, automation specialists, and content curators," the report said.

"But the transformation of existing jobs resulting from reengineering a process to use cognitive support — such as turning low-value data entry work to higher-level analyst or customer-oriented roles — will be even more dramatic."

The reason clerical roles will be replaced is because they are highly repetitive and involve processes which are easy to replicate by machine, according to Neil Kinson, chief of staff at robotics firm Redwood Software, which automates back office and administrative processes in finance, supply chain and human resources.

"There was a very well publicized report by Oxford University that ranks your job relative to its likelihood to be automated by 2020," he told CNBC in a phone interview. "Top of the list of those jobs was highly repetitive clerical-type activities.

"Anything that is highly repetitive, that follows a repetitive role and uses some kind of technology, can be automated," he added.

Jim, this goes back to our conversations about some kind of universal salary.

What really concerns me is that we're not seeing much national conversation - and NONE from politicians - about this, and the clock is ticking.

Technology was meant to decrease our need to work. Well, here we are. NOW what?
.

 

[Picaro]

I agree with most of that, but you have to have controled population growth that allows for further expansion of the economy for the next generation.

Stagnant populations create stagnant economies.

Zero population growth is exactly what is needed when the means of making a living is reduced. Better health care, smaller families, and better education is available, poverty decreases, while GDP and productivity outstrip the population growth. More people do not mean a better economy, just the opposite. Cheap labor retards incomes, while increasing the need for more infrastructure, more demands on basic resources, and generates more poverty, not less. The U.S. was on the right track by 1970, a population of around 200 million, and staying there. We now have over 330 million and massive infrastructure decline, poverty, and political instability. We don't need more population for our economy to expand; all that does is dilute an ever smaller slice of the economic gains among far more people, many of whom aren't ever going to be productive, and are net drains, whether legal or illegal. It's national suicide, and unlike the brie and chardonnay set that runs the two Parties, most of us can't afford to build our own forts and hire private armies, or buy a house on a golf course in Bermuda. It doesn't do any good to make $5 million dollars day trading or flipping houses only to find out it isn't nearly enough to save anybody from anarchy or the Brave New Somalia model of 'globalism'.

 

[320 Years of History]

What other approaches do you see as viable realistic alternatives or supplemental activities to a UBI?

Why something other than UBI now:

Advocates of a UBI have recently become so interested in the problem of robots taking our jobs. The idea is that automation will make human labor so worthless, and make humanity so fantastically wealthy, that we practically won’t notice if we siphon a considerable amount of that money into a benefit that will, effectively, allow people to be permanently unemployed without starving to death. I’m skeptical of this story for a number of reasons -- starting with the fact that “the machines are about to put us all out of work” has been a staple of science fiction for a century without coming noticeably closer to science reality. This time may be different, of course; even the boy who cried wolf eventually did come across a predator.

But even if this story eventually comes true, it isn’t true now -- and until it is true, there’s no real reason for voters to want to shuck their current welfare state for one that is either much more expensive or cuts benefits for current beneficiaries, while throwing in some possibly strong disincentives for lower-skilled people to hold jobs. After all, the government is pretty good at mailing checks. In the event that a majority of the population is thrown out of work by robots, a UBI can be set up in a trice.

The UBI advocates, in other words, have provided neither a realistic fiscal plan for their policy, nor any urgently compelling reason for us to pursue it. It’s possible that the UBI is the policy of the future. But if so, that future is probably still quite a ways off.​

Even if the time for UBI were now, we can't afford it:

Policy makers trying to craft a UBI end up with an unpalatable choice between creating a benefit that is useless, or one that is too costly to pass. Consider a basic income of $1,000 a month. Most of us would not consider an annual income of $12,000 a year enough to live on; it’s just a smidge above the poverty line for a single person.

But there are 242 million adults living in the U.S. Now, 7 percent of the U.S. population consists of noncitizens, but even if we assume that grants go only to citizens, that’s 225 million adults. Multiply times $12,000 a year … right, it’s $2,700,720,000,000, or 70 percent of the current federal budget.

Yes, but we’ll get rid of the other programs, one might say. Okay, well, this $1000 monthly grant is considerably less than the current average Social Security benefit, a benefit that President Obama (and judging from my social media accounts, most of his party) consider too paltry. It’s going to look even skimpier once one disposes of Medicare and force retirees to buy their health care on the open market, a cost that would consume most of their guaranteed basic income.

Oh, we weren’t going to get rid of Medicare? Nor Medicaid or Obamacare? And of course we’ll keep providing public schooling, and assistance for disabled children, and…. By the time one has started saving programs that obviously can’t be cut without immiserating large chunks of the population who currently rely on the government, what one has is a $2.7 trillion program to substitute for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare), unemployment insurance, Social Security and food stamps -- four programs upon which the federal government currently spends about $1.2 trillion.

Moreover, since the grant would be, in many cases, less generous than what a lot of people are currently collecting, we will probably have to either top up for those groups, or increase the size of the benefit, until we have a $3 trillion or $4 trillion program to replace $1.2 trillion worth of welfare spending. Even if we tax back the whole benefit from higher earners (which would reintroduce many of the marginal tax problems we were trying to avoid with the UBI in the first place), the dead-weight loss of the additional taxation needed to pay for this program will probably harm economic growth, making the program more expensive still. I’m not a supply-side hawk who thinks that any tax increases will plunge us all back into the dark ages, but running an additional $2 trillion to $3 trillion through government coffers every year might give even some ardent big-government Democrats pause.

Handing out a universal benefit of any size at all will be fantastically expensive. One can make it smaller, of course, but then one doesn't get any of the vaunted benefits: It doesn’t prevent the benefit cliffs, doesn’t encourage entrepreneurship, doesn’t lessen the distortions of all the in-kind benefits one has left in place.​

What does one do instead?

• Train people so they have the skills to perform work that cannot be automated. What cannot be automated? Well, pretty much everything that requires high quality judgment -- creative judgment, ethical judgement -- and everything that requires innovation that produces things we don't have at the time and/or that someone figures out is either needed or desired.
  
  This happens to be the approach I like best because I think it would convert people out of their "rote doer" ways of aiming to use their labors and into an analytical and problem solving mode of thinking thinking that leads them to being sellers not merely of their physical labor, but also of their innovation. That transforms a person from merely being a laborer to being a person who purchases labor and uses it to sell something that is the product of labor effort. At that point, even in a robotized world, that person is benefitting from the fruits of labor, be it human or robotic. As a result, they won't need a UBI.
  
  Fundamentally, I don't see automation as a or "the" problem. I see individuals' lacking the skills to do work that cannot be automated as the problem. So far, nobody I'm aware of has proposed that robots will at anytime innovate and create original thought. Thus, those are the things that people must do if they are to avoid the risk of their labor being made unnecessary by automation. Too few people are sources of original and worthwhile thought. That truly needs to change, UBI or no UBI.
• Another approach is to perfect the UI model we currently have. Our current assistance programs are far from perfect. They are well intended, but they need improving.
• Begin transforming our societal economic systems so that at some point in the future the country can afford to dole out a meaning sum as a UBI.
  • One of the elements of transformation is to reduce the constraints on capitalism. Why? Because in a world where robots perform the labor, the downsides of capitalism don't matter. Robots don't need social justice or workplace fairness.
  • Another step in the transformation would be to lessen the barriers to entry into the ranks of capitalists. Currently, our business regulatory environment is one whereby it's quite costly for folks who have innovative ideas to implement them. That's not only bad for the individuals, but also for our society.

 

[jasonnfree]

I agree with most of that, but you have to have controled population growth that allows for further expansion of the economy for the next generation.

Stagnant populations create stagnant economies.

Zero population growth is exactly what is needed when the means of making a living is reduced. Better health care, smaller families, and better education is available, poverty decreases, while GDP and productivity outstrip the population growth. More people do not mean a better economy, just the opposite. Cheap labor retards incomes, while increasing the need for more infrastructure, more demands on basic resources, and generates more poverty, not less. The U.S. was on the right track by 1970, a population of around 200 million, and staying there. We now have over 330 million and massive infrastructure decline, poverty, and political instability. We don't need more population for our economy to expand; all that does is dilute an ever smaller slice of the economic gains among far more people, many of whom aren't ever going to be productive, and are net drains, whether legal or illegal. It's national suicide, and unlike the brie and chardonnay set that runs the two Parties, most of us can't afford to build our own forts and hire private armies, or buy a house on a golf course in Bermuda. It doesn't do any good to make $5 million dollars day trading or flipping houses only to find out it isn't nearly enough to save anybody from anarchy or the Brave New Somalia model of 'globalism'.

Back in the late 60's, early 70's, there was even talk about a 35 hour work week because of the great productivity rate in USA. And right, the stable population was one key factor. We all know how a stable population worked out.

 

[Fishlore]

This is karma coming back to bite the hand that bred it fer sher.

Hey, you managers that exported jobs all over the globe; your day is coming too!

The robots set to disrupt white collar work

The jobs most likely to be disrupted by automation will be roles in customer service, office and administration, but other kinds of work will be created.

"The cognitive era will create new jobs, such as robot monitoring professionals, data scientists, automation specialists, and content curators," the report said.

"But the transformation of existing jobs resulting from reengineering a process to use cognitive support — such as turning low-value data entry work to higher-level analyst or customer-oriented roles — will be even more dramatic."

The reason clerical roles will be replaced is because they are highly repetitive and involve processes which are easy to replicate by machine, according to Neil Kinson, chief of staff at robotics firm Redwood Software, which automates back office and administrative processes in finance, supply chain and human resources.

"There was a very well publicized report by Oxford University that ranks your job relative to its likelihood to be automated by 2020," he told CNBC in a phone interview. "Top of the list of those jobs was highly repetitive clerical-type activities.

"Anything that is highly repetitive, that follows a repetitive role and uses some kind of technology, can be automated," he added.

The industrial revolution, who would have thunk it would bring in automation...??

Automation is at the heart of the business in some ways. The machine that is credited with powering the whole IR, the steam engines by Newcomen and Watt were the first wave of automation. What made them engines rather than just tools was the way they automatically (i.e. by themselves) transfered steam from one side of the piston to the other. Similarly, the spinning jenny, credited with beginning modern manufacturing, innovated by transfering the sequence in the weaving process from a human operator, as at a hand loom, to the inner workings of the machine itself.

This most recent stage in the evolution of automation is miles beyond the primitive governing and gearing of the first machines. We are seeing machines that design machines and assemble them as well as operate them. If a machine can do the job as well as a human, hire the machine! We need to focus on the things which machines cannot provide.

 

[Picaro]

I agree with most of that, but you have to have controled population growth that allows for further expansion of the economy for the next generation.

Stagnant populations create stagnant economies.

Zero population growth is exactly what is needed when the means of making a living is reduced. Better health care, smaller families, and better education is available, poverty decreases, while GDP and productivity outstrip the population growth. More people do not mean a better economy, just the opposite. Cheap labor retards incomes, while increasing the need for more infrastructure, more demands on basic resources, and generates more poverty, not less. The U.S. was on the right track by 1970, a population of around 200 million, and staying there. We now have over 330 million and massive infrastructure decline, poverty, and political instability. We don't need more population for our economy to expand; all that does is dilute an ever smaller slice of the economic gains among far more people, many of whom aren't ever going to be productive, and are net drains, whether legal or illegal. It's national suicide, and unlike the brie and chardonnay set that runs the two Parties, most of us can't afford to build our own forts and hire private armies, or buy a house on a golf course in Bermuda. It doesn't do any good to make $5 million dollars day trading or flipping houses only to find out it isn't nearly enough to save anybody from anarchy or the Brave New Somalia model of 'globalism'.

Back in the late 60's, early 70's, there was even talk about a 35 hour work week because of the great productivity rate in USA. And right, the stable population was one key factor. We all know how a stable population worked out.

as we've seen throughout the history of the Industrial revolution, it doesn't matter how low wages are or how much of labor surplus there is, the drive for automation is ongoing and constant.

People who keep babbling about 'needing illegal aliens to pick our crops' haven't bothered to actually check out how modern Big Ag has picked its crops the last 30 years; it's largely automated now, and more automation is being developed, and illegal alien labor is the cheapest and most viciously exploited labor available, for just one example.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Jim, this goes back to our conversations about some kind of universal salary.

What really concerns me is that we're not seeing much national conversation - and NONE from politicians - about this, and the clock is ticking.

Technology was meant to decrease our need to work. Well, here we are. NOW what?
.

Well, one of two things will happen; either we get a grip on this thing and manage it well, or there will be a culling of some kind.

Know what I mean?