5 ms·

It is not just manufacturing that is going to be replaced by AI and Robots and it will affect developing and developed countries. Already there are a lot of ju

by epalmer 10y ago

It is not just manufacturing that is going to be replaced by AI and Robots and it will affect developing and developed countries. Already there are a lot of junior lawyers being replaced [0]. Check out what a former CEO of McDonald's said about robots and the fast food industry [1]. > “I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday and if you look at the robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry – it’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient making $15 an hour bagging french fries,” the former US chief executive Ed Rensi told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/science/05legal.html [1] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former-mcdonalds-ceo-threatens-replace-employees-robots http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/25/former-mcdona...

Canada 10y ago
I wonder where the senior lawyers will come from... [edit] then again, automation of software development tasks held back the software industry at all...
- anonred 10y ago
  I think you're missing the point. It's not that AI will replace all lawyers, it'll simply shrink the lawyer pool size due to increased productivity per capita.
  - Canada 10y ago
    Oops. That's the point I meant to make with my edit, but leaving out a word by accident I said the opposite.
dogma1138 10y ago
Yes things like legal discovery, medical history research and many other things can (and could be for the past 10+ years) and will be "replaced" or more like integrated with software / machine learning assist. Large firms that hire 30 new associates instead of 50 won't be a big blow to the economy, even McDonalds switching to more automation won't have that much of a negative impact McDonald's can and should be the "cheapest" option, but don't expect the local diner to automate at the same time, and don't forget that we are willing to pay more for a barista even tho when you use the same beans even 25 year old automated coffee machines produces a better and more consistent product than the vast majority of barista's out there. The Restaurant industry in the US overall employs about 15M people and that figure is expected to grow by 10% in the next 10 years even with automation.
- throwawaykeno 10y ago
  Automating good baristas in a cost-effective way is actually a pretty hard problem, but automating your typical Starbucks espresso machine button pusher is trivial -- machines that can make passable cappuccinos already exist. But people don't go to Starbucks for the coffee; they go to Starbucks for the same reason they go to bars. I think a lot of the service sector automation that will happen in the next 20+ years is analogous. Anything customer-facing is bound to stick around as long as people have spending money, while anything that's not customer-facing will slowly become automated. E.g. The person at the counter in a McDonalds is the easiest person to replace -- all you really need is an iPad and a couple accessories. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that McDonalds will replace food prep jobs before replacing humans with kiosks in most locations.
  - retox 10y ago
    Why is replacing baristas a difficult problem? Not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Because allot of the "marketing" of the "experience" has been focused branding the individual person behind the coffee rather than the coffee it self. Go into any "artisan" coffee shop and the barista would pretty much look identical, many of them will engage and have their own "shtick" to make the experience of drinking their coffee "unique". The coffee it self is also going to be heavily branded and sold to you as some fantastic story with many images which again will be heavily focused on the people who were involved in the entire process from growing the beams to your cup. This is what we are buying now, 20$> an ounce "fair traded organic beans" with some nice retro photographs of Bolivian coffee farmers combined with some 20 year old millennials inspecting the beans to make sure you get the "best" ones in your cup. This is what you can't replace, brewing the coffee and even foaming milk is something that a machine can do easily, and arguably better than most people, heck even latte drawing can probably be better done with a 2-axis drip nozzle than a barista with a bamboo stick but when you pay 7$ for a cup of coffee you aren't paying for coffee you are paying for the experience that no machine can actually give you simply because you don't want it. You want the human contact because at least in my personal belief that is a coping mechanism we have adopted to make for the isolationist life style that many of us live today in which we spend more time with our phones than with people, and so we care now more about how our coffee and burritos are being made and by whom than ever before.
y4mi 10y ago
and i'm significantly more likely to buy the fries if they weren't bagged by a human. for essentially two reasons; a) mcdonalds treats their employees like shit. no job is better than that job ( i live in a country with social welfare) b) the person bagging the food scratched his balls just before doing so, and he sure as hell isn't bothering to use gloves now.
- herebolt 10y ago
  and they forgot the salt! again! arrrrrgh.
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    That's easily remedied with the little salt packets. Too much salt on the other hand...
epalmer 10y ago
Robot automation can be fun as well. Bartender on a cruise ship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBF7EE2xnN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBF7EE2xnN4

by epalmer 10y ago

Canada 10y ago

I wonder where the senior lawyers will come from... [edit] then again, automation of software development tasks held back the software industry at all...

anonred 10y ago
I think you're missing the point. It's not that AI will replace all lawyers, it'll simply shrink the lawyer pool size due to increased productivity per capita.
- Canada 10y ago
  Oops. That's the point I meant to make with my edit, but leaving out a word by accident I said the opposite.

dogma1138 10y ago

Yes things like legal discovery, medical history research and many other things can (and could be for the past 10+ years) and will be "replaced" or more like integrated with software / machine learning assist. Large firms that hire 30 new associates instead of 50 won't be a big blow to the economy, even McDonalds switching to more automation won't have that much of a negative impact McDonald's can and should be the "cheapest" option, but don't expect the local diner to automate at the same time, and don't forget that we are willing to pay more for a barista even tho when you use the same beans even 25 year old automated coffee machines produces a better and more consistent product than the vast majority of barista's out there. The Restaurant industry in the US overall employs about 15M people and that figure is expected to grow by 10% in the next 10 years even with automation.

throwawaykeno 10y ago
Automating good baristas in a cost-effective way is actually a pretty hard problem, but automating your typical Starbucks espresso machine button pusher is trivial -- machines that can make passable cappuccinos already exist. But people don't go to Starbucks for the coffee; they go to Starbucks for the same reason they go to bars. I think a lot of the service sector automation that will happen in the next 20+ years is analogous. Anything customer-facing is bound to stick around as long as people have spending money, while anything that's not customer-facing will slowly become automated. E.g. The person at the counter in a McDonalds is the easiest person to replace -- all you really need is an iPad and a couple accessories. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that McDonalds will replace food prep jobs before replacing humans with kiosks in most locations.
- retox 10y ago
  Why is replacing baristas a difficult problem? Not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Because allot of the "marketing" of the "experience" has been focused branding the individual person behind the coffee rather than the coffee it self. Go into any "artisan" coffee shop and the barista would pretty much look identical, many of them will engage and have their own "shtick" to make the experience of drinking their coffee "unique". The coffee it self is also going to be heavily branded and sold to you as some fantastic story with many images which again will be heavily focused on the people who were involved in the entire process from growing the beams to your cup. This is what we are buying now, 20$> an ounce "fair traded organic beans" with some nice retro photographs of Bolivian coffee farmers combined with some 20 year old millennials inspecting the beans to make sure you get the "best" ones in your cup. This is what you can't replace, brewing the coffee and even foaming milk is something that a machine can do easily, and arguably better than most people, heck even latte drawing can probably be better done with a 2-axis drip nozzle than a barista with a bamboo stick but when you pay 7$ for a cup of coffee you aren't paying for coffee you are paying for the experience that no machine can actually give you simply because you don't want it. You want the human contact because at least in my personal belief that is a coping mechanism we have adopted to make for the isolationist life style that many of us live today in which we spend more time with our phones than with people, and so we care now more about how our coffee and burritos are being made and by whom than ever before.

y4mi 10y ago

and i'm significantly more likely to buy the fries if they weren't bagged by a human. for essentially two reasons; a) mcdonalds treats their employees like shit. no job is better than that job ( i live in a country with social welfare) b) the person bagging the food scratched his balls just before doing so, and he sure as hell isn't bothering to use gloves now.

herebolt 10y ago
and they forgot the salt! again! arrrrrgh.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  That's easily remedied with the little salt packets. Too much salt on the other hand...

epalmer 10y ago

Robot automation can be fun as well. Bartender on a cruise ship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBF7EE2xnN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBF7EE2xnN4