7 ms·

Technology Will Kill White-Collar Jobs

46 points by entangld 11y ago

Animats 11y ago
If your connection to the world is via a phone and computer, you will be replaced.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Spooks 11y ago
  Not sure that statement is true (I actually think it's almost the opposite). For example if programmers are replaced, who will create the programs for the machines? I imagine even after the first wave of robot overloads, they will want a version 2.0. If you are a web designer, your connection is through a computer. Not sure robots can be creative (not yet anyways) If you are a sales person, your connection will be through a phone (I don't think we are anywhere close to where a computer can make a judgement call based on speaking cues)
  - saint_fiasco 11y ago
    Emulated minds and artificial intelligences will replace programmers eventually. Even graphic design could be done by an AI running a genetic algorithm, with automated A/B testing as the fitness function.
  - jackcosgrove 11y ago
    Yes, programmer will be the last job.
    - hackinthebochs 11y ago
      Programmer will be the last job, but most programming jobs will be a part of the first wave to go. I can't tell you how many days I've felt like my job (wire up this API by googling then massaging a code sample) was such an obviously mechanical process than the AI needed to do it was not significantly more advanced than where we are now. I do not expect most of these jobs to last another two decades (at least by then ageism will have pushed me out anyways).
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > Programmer will be the last job, but most programming jobs will be a part of the first wave to go. No, because the first wave of white collar jobs to go has already been happening, and it is mostly middle management. (I suspect the next wave will be a lot of domain-specialized professionals in research/analytical roles -- but not so much solution design and implementation -- roles.)
      - undersuit 11y ago
        I wonder how many programmers shouted doom and gloom when the first assembly language was created, when the first compilers came to take their jobs, or when the first framework stole their work? Don't complain about boring, tedious boilerplate being removed, the removal just frees up our time for more interesting work.
        hackinthebochs 11y ago
        The difference is that the market for different kinds of software products grew massively in the timeframe you're referencing, as did the complexity of software we were capable of creating. I don't expect these trends to continue. There will always be new technology to program for, but if automation takes over the gruntwork of development, which is the vast majority of it, market or complexity growth will not save it.
- anon1mous 11y ago
  Nonsense. So you think that drivers, farmers, construction workers are safer than the employees of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. ?
acd 11y ago
There will have to be a shift to more creative work which can not be done by computers.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  There is nothing that can't ultimately be done by computers/ai.
- rms_returns 11y ago
  Until the day when computers learn how to become more creative (AI and stuff).
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Until art is mechanically approximately generated at acceptable levels for zero cost. At which point we'll realize we have to enjoy our existences and there's nothing to solve here.
- muraiki 11y ago
  Is there enough demand for that much creative work? Who will consume it, if this trend widens the income inequality gap?
  - dclowd9901 11y ago
    > Is there enough demand for that much creative work? Are you serious? All we do outside of work is consume others' creativity.
    - muraiki 11y ago
      Let's consider just music for now. Go to Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc. and see how much music is already freely available. What percentage of those artists are able to make a living as full-time musicians? (especially when the trend is now to pay $X/mo to consume all you want) And if income inequality increase, there will be less consumers able to consume that increased supply, further lowering the value of the supply of music. The "winners" of the situation who end up with more income do not have additional time to consume ever more greater quantities of music, while the losers have less money and potentially also less time (if they need to work more to make ends meet). Edit: Also, given your wording of the question it seems like you aren't a producer of creative content yourself, so perhaps you aren't as directly aware of the trend I'm describing above, which has already had a serious effect upon an already difficult-to-pursue profession.
draw_down 11y ago
Of course it will. Those labor costs are much higher than for fast food workers!
votr 11y ago
The second-order effect is to kill the businesses and jobs which depend on white collar patronage.
ThomPete 11y ago
Digitalization is to White-Collars what automation is to Blue-Collars.
mtberatwork 11y ago
> Technology will kill white-collar jobs. Yes, we all agree. No one disputes that. This article is more about Jeff Greene's conference and biography than it is about automation. Reads like an advertorial.
- ErikAugust 11y ago
  White-collar job: Writing Advertorials Wait, I can write a script to do that...
  - rbinv 11y ago
    Soon: "Google is proud to introduce Markov chain advertorials."
Isamu 11y ago
Humans can always do the jobs that robots feel too overqualified to do.
sytelus 11y ago
Eventually technology should kill pretty much all of the jobs. Human time and energy should be spent on what they find interesting, not on mundane stuff such as farming, housing, construction, database plumbing - all of which could be easily automated. No human should have to work to pay bills because there should be no bills. That should be the promise of technology. Only jobs left for humans should be things that require creativity, higher level reasoning and new ideas. Of course, there may be AI one day that does better than us on these areas as well and that's just part of evolution. It doesn't necessarily have to mean humans will go extinct. Universe has plenty of space for all of us and next generation of intellectual species.
- jackcosgrove 11y ago
  If it were still up and running, I'd link you to regretsy.com for a primer on most people's level of creativity. But it's gone so now all I can say is that it showed the worst "user-generated stuff" people posted to Etsy. Not buying it - we have specialization and professionalization in part to maintain quality of work. Everyone cannot be, and should not be, an artist. Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs.
  - sytelus 11y ago
    No one says everybody needs to be creative or artists or mathematicians or scientists. All I'm saying is human life is too precious to keep assembling iPhones for 12 hours a day or bag groceries at Walmart. I think assertion that everyone start doing drugs if they need not do jobs shows utter and incomprehensible ignorance. Sure, not all are creative but that's not the requirement to have a life without mandatory jobs you don't want to do. People may turn in to beach bums or surfers or just hippy wanderers - whatever. It's their life they got one shot at living and it's still better activity than forcing them to flip burgers mechanically at McDonnalds 10 hours a day.
  - kaybe 11y ago
    If they had fun making it, why not? Not everyone will go to the Olympics..
vonnik 11y ago
Why are we even talking about this guy? While this prediction may be true in the long run, it's not really news, and we're a long, long ways away from autonomous conversation agents that will replace expert professionals. These dramatic long-run predictions that fail to take into account other trends -- free solar energy, climatic collapse, all-you-can-edit genes -- are essentially worthless.
oldmanjay 11y ago
North Korea will kill white-collar jobs with thermonuclear fire!
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  (I do apologize for being flippant. This story is too slight for me to take it seriously and next time I'll just flag it)
aswanson 11y ago
There was a sci fi book by (Niven?) mentioned to me by a friend about a future society where the songmakers where the most important. Anyone know the book title?
CM30 11y ago
I do wonder whether a certain amount of jobs will stay simply because of certain people's preferences for human made products. I mean, look at the markets for different types of food. We can genetically engineer stuff and use factory farming and all that stuff, but a significant audience just doesn't trust the technology or buy into the ethics of it. Wonder if human made could become the next organic, at least among certain hipster types... I also wonder whether a certain amount of this 'technology will kill jobs' stuff overlooks a small business issue that a certain few people don't seem to get. Namely, that the businesses that do well aren't always the fastest producing ones or the ones that make the 'best' products in some statistical sense. After all, about 90% of sites online are simply made obsolete by other, usually more popular ones. But many of them still gain an audience, even without being the 'best' at something or posting about it the quickest. All these talks and articles seem to assume the equivalents to Walmart and McDonalds will win in all markets because 'robots do things better/cheaper' and completely overlook such things as customer loyalty, branding, location or anything else. AI is going to be an issue, but I think it's a tad premature to say all businesses will turn to it, or that businesses that aim for a more niche audience and care about the service more than the price will somehow stop being able to do well.

46 points by entangld 11y ago

Animats 11y ago

If your connection to the world is via a phone and computer, you will be replaced.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Spooks 11y ago
Not sure that statement is true (I actually think it's almost the opposite). For example if programmers are replaced, who will create the programs for the machines? I imagine even after the first wave of robot overloads, they will want a version 2.0. If you are a web designer, your connection is through a computer. Not sure robots can be creative (not yet anyways) If you are a sales person, your connection will be through a phone (I don't think we are anywhere close to where a computer can make a judgement call based on speaking cues)
- saint_fiasco 11y ago
  Emulated minds and artificial intelligences will replace programmers eventually. Even graphic design could be done by an AI running a genetic algorithm, with automated A/B testing as the fitness function.
- jackcosgrove 11y ago
  Yes, programmer will be the last job.
  - hackinthebochs 11y ago
    Programmer will be the last job, but most programming jobs will be a part of the first wave to go. I can't tell you how many days I've felt like my job (wire up this API by googling then massaging a code sample) was such an obviously mechanical process than the AI needed to do it was not significantly more advanced than where we are now. I do not expect most of these jobs to last another two decades (at least by then ageism will have pushed me out anyways).
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Programmer will be the last job, but most programming jobs will be a part of the first wave to go. No, because the first wave of white collar jobs to go has already been happening, and it is mostly middle management. (I suspect the next wave will be a lot of domain-specialized professionals in research/analytical roles -- but not so much solution design and implementation -- roles.)
    - undersuit 11y ago
      I wonder how many programmers shouted doom and gloom when the first assembly language was created, when the first compilers came to take their jobs, or when the first framework stole their work? Don't complain about boring, tedious boilerplate being removed, the removal just frees up our time for more interesting work.
      - hackinthebochs 11y ago
        The difference is that the market for different kinds of software products grew massively in the timeframe you're referencing, as did the complexity of software we were capable of creating. I don't expect these trends to continue. There will always be new technology to program for, but if automation takes over the gruntwork of development, which is the vast majority of it, market or complexity growth will not save it.
anon1mous 11y ago
Nonsense. So you think that drivers, farmers, construction workers are safer than the employees of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. ?

acd 11y ago

There will have to be a shift to more creative work which can not be done by computers.

ThomPete 11y ago
There is nothing that can't ultimately be done by computers/ai.
rms_returns 11y ago
Until the day when computers learn how to become more creative (AI and stuff).
agumonkey 11y ago
Until art is mechanically approximately generated at acceptable levels for zero cost. At which point we'll realize we have to enjoy our existences and there's nothing to solve here.
muraiki 11y ago
Is there enough demand for that much creative work? Who will consume it, if this trend widens the income inequality gap?
- dclowd9901 11y ago
  > Is there enough demand for that much creative work? Are you serious? All we do outside of work is consume others' creativity.
  - muraiki 11y ago
    Let's consider just music for now. Go to Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc. and see how much music is already freely available. What percentage of those artists are able to make a living as full-time musicians? (especially when the trend is now to pay $X/mo to consume all you want) And if income inequality increase, there will be less consumers able to consume that increased supply, further lowering the value of the supply of music. The "winners" of the situation who end up with more income do not have additional time to consume ever more greater quantities of music, while the losers have less money and potentially also less time (if they need to work more to make ends meet). Edit: Also, given your wording of the question it seems like you aren't a producer of creative content yourself, so perhaps you aren't as directly aware of the trend I'm describing above, which has already had a serious effect upon an already difficult-to-pursue profession.

draw_down 11y ago

Of course it will. Those labor costs are much higher than for fast food workers!

votr 11y ago

The second-order effect is to kill the businesses and jobs which depend on white collar patronage.

ThomPete 11y ago

Digitalization is to White-Collars what automation is to Blue-Collars.

mtberatwork 11y ago

> Technology will kill white-collar jobs. Yes, we all agree. No one disputes that. This article is more about Jeff Greene's conference and biography than it is about automation. Reads like an advertorial.

ErikAugust 11y ago
White-collar job: Writing Advertorials Wait, I can write a script to do that...
- rbinv 11y ago
  Soon: "Google is proud to introduce Markov chain advertorials."

Isamu 11y ago

Humans can always do the jobs that robots feel too overqualified to do.

sytelus 11y ago

Eventually technology should kill pretty much all of the jobs. Human time and energy should be spent on what they find interesting, not on mundane stuff such as farming, housing, construction, database plumbing - all of which could be easily automated. No human should have to work to pay bills because there should be no bills. That should be the promise of technology. Only jobs left for humans should be things that require creativity, higher level reasoning and new ideas. Of course, there may be AI one day that does better than us on these areas as well and that's just part of evolution. It doesn't necessarily have to mean humans will go extinct. Universe has plenty of space for all of us and next generation of intellectual species.

jackcosgrove 11y ago
If it were still up and running, I'd link you to regretsy.com for a primer on most people's level of creativity. But it's gone so now all I can say is that it showed the worst "user-generated stuff" people posted to Etsy. Not buying it - we have specialization and professionalization in part to maintain quality of work. Everyone cannot be, and should not be, an artist. Anyways, if no one had to work, most people would just do drugs.
- sytelus 11y ago
  No one says everybody needs to be creative or artists or mathematicians or scientists. All I'm saying is human life is too precious to keep assembling iPhones for 12 hours a day or bag groceries at Walmart. I think assertion that everyone start doing drugs if they need not do jobs shows utter and incomprehensible ignorance. Sure, not all are creative but that's not the requirement to have a life without mandatory jobs you don't want to do. People may turn in to beach bums or surfers or just hippy wanderers - whatever. It's their life they got one shot at living and it's still better activity than forcing them to flip burgers mechanically at McDonnalds 10 hours a day.
- kaybe 11y ago
  If they had fun making it, why not? Not everyone will go to the Olympics..

vonnik 11y ago

Why are we even talking about this guy? While this prediction may be true in the long run, it's not really news, and we're a long, long ways away from autonomous conversation agents that will replace expert professionals. These dramatic long-run predictions that fail to take into account other trends -- free solar energy, climatic collapse, all-you-can-edit genes -- are essentially worthless.

oldmanjay 11y ago

North Korea will kill white-collar jobs with thermonuclear fire!

oldmanjay 11y ago
(I do apologize for being flippant. This story is too slight for me to take it seriously and next time I'll just flag it)

aswanson 11y ago

There was a sci fi book by (Niven?) mentioned to me by a friend about a future society where the songmakers where the most important. Anyone know the book title?

CM30 11y ago

I do wonder whether a certain amount of jobs will stay simply because of certain people's preferences for human made products. I mean, look at the markets for different types of food. We can genetically engineer stuff and use factory farming and all that stuff, but a significant audience just doesn't trust the technology or buy into the ethics of it. Wonder if human made could become the next organic, at least among certain hipster types... I also wonder whether a certain amount of this 'technology will kill jobs' stuff overlooks a small business issue that a certain few people don't seem to get. Namely, that the businesses that do well aren't always the fastest producing ones or the ones that make the 'best' products in some statistical sense. After all, about 90% of sites online are simply made obsolete by other, usually more popular ones. But many of them still gain an audience, even without being the 'best' at something or posting about it the quickest. All these talks and articles seem to assume the equivalents to Walmart and McDonalds will win in all markets because 'robots do things better/cheaper' and completely overlook such things as customer loyalty, branding, location or anything else. AI is going to be an issue, but I think it's a tad premature to say all businesses will turn to it, or that businesses that aim for a more niche audience and care about the service more than the price will somehow stop being able to do well.