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Manufacturing jobs did not require enormously sophisticated skills (i.e. the equivalent of a PhD) to be performed. So "moving up" or "moving to" the new jobs w

by Pamar 10y ago

Manufacturing jobs did not require enormously sophisticated skills (i.e. the equivalent of a PhD) to be performed. So "moving up" or "moving to" the new jobs was still possible. If automated trucks replace 1000 truckers, how many of them will be able to transition to "automated truck programmer"? (And note: they cannot move to "automated truck mechanic" because those jobs are already taken by "non-automated truck mechanics")

pbalau 10y ago
Please try to not dismiss my question, but what skills does a truck driver have that can't be learned in a couple of weeks? On the other side, I agree with the manufacturing comment. There is a British documentary about building steam locomotives on Youtube. Watch what the skilled workers do, they just move things from side to side so a machine can do the hard work. Hell, I can learn to do that in a week.
- Pamar 10y ago
  I am not dismissing it, but I don't see your point. Yes, to become a truck driver your basic qualification is "driving license" (for trucks, if your country treats it differently from driving cars). You may have extra skills, e.g. a foreign language would help you qualify for driving across the border, maybe, but it is not required. So when your main/only skill is "driving a truck" what can you pick up as a new job when "driving a truck" has been automated?
  - pbalau 10y ago
    The point is that at the moment we will replace all truck driving jobs in US, we are not going to replace 3.5 million individual workers, with skills that took a life to master, but 3.5 million jobs that a big slice of the 7 billion humans could learn to do in a couple of weeks (let's not start a debate about how far away we are from actually starting to have automatic trucks...). I don't see the point of feeling bad for these people loosing their jobs. As I don't feel bad for all the breakers that were put out of a job by the invention of air brakes (did you know that US railways took forever - and many casualties - to adopt air brakes, because they didn't want to fire breakers?) Reading and writing where a skill at some point. So was driving. But at this point, they are necessities (maybe not driving, if you live in a civilized country). We shouldn't keep jobs around just because some people really can't do anything else. I'm not saying that we shouldn't find a way for these people to live, but keeping them employed in jobs that hold humanity back, just because, is beyond stupid.
    - Pamar 10y ago
      Then we are talking of two different things, I am afraid. I never said or implied "we must prevent truckers from being replaced by automation". I have my own ideas on this, but it wasn't the point I was answering to. What I was trying to address was: "Yeah, in the past technology advances always created new jobs, this will happen with AI too, do not worry". And I am arguing that this time we are not sure it will work because the skill gap between - for instance - truck driver and self-driving-sensor-suite repairman is much bigger than the one between farmer and factory worker.
tdb7893 10y ago
I know individually people are going to have a hard time, that seems pretty obvious. The comment I was responding to was saying that technology was going to lead to less jobs overall and I was just pointing out that each specific technology has led to less jobs overall (otherwise generally the new tech wouldn't be worth it) but the economy as a whole generally creates jobs elsewhere to compensate. I was mainly wondering why he think the economy can't create the new jobs any more.
- wott 10y ago
  But anyone could transition from farmer/craftsman to factory worker. It needed less skills to repeat a small set of gestures all day long for months and years on an assembly line (being a cog in a machine) than were needed by the craftsman who excelled in his craft (highly skilled in one domain) and by the farmer who had to know and be able to do a bit of everything (not deep, but wide skills). But for the current/next transition...

by Pamar 10y ago

pbalau 10y ago

Please try to not dismiss my question, but what skills does a truck driver have that can't be learned in a couple of weeks? On the other side, I agree with the manufacturing comment. There is a British documentary about building steam locomotives on Youtube. Watch what the skilled workers do, they just move things from side to side so a machine can do the hard work. Hell, I can learn to do that in a week.

Pamar 10y ago
I am not dismissing it, but I don't see your point. Yes, to become a truck driver your basic qualification is "driving license" (for trucks, if your country treats it differently from driving cars). You may have extra skills, e.g. a foreign language would help you qualify for driving across the border, maybe, but it is not required. So when your main/only skill is "driving a truck" what can you pick up as a new job when "driving a truck" has been automated?
- pbalau 10y ago
  The point is that at the moment we will replace all truck driving jobs in US, we are not going to replace 3.5 million individual workers, with skills that took a life to master, but 3.5 million jobs that a big slice of the 7 billion humans could learn to do in a couple of weeks (let's not start a debate about how far away we are from actually starting to have automatic trucks...). I don't see the point of feeling bad for these people loosing their jobs. As I don't feel bad for all the breakers that were put out of a job by the invention of air brakes (did you know that US railways took forever - and many casualties - to adopt air brakes, because they didn't want to fire breakers?) Reading and writing where a skill at some point. So was driving. But at this point, they are necessities (maybe not driving, if you live in a civilized country). We shouldn't keep jobs around just because some people really can't do anything else. I'm not saying that we shouldn't find a way for these people to live, but keeping them employed in jobs that hold humanity back, just because, is beyond stupid.
  - Pamar 10y ago
    Then we are talking of two different things, I am afraid. I never said or implied "we must prevent truckers from being replaced by automation". I have my own ideas on this, but it wasn't the point I was answering to. What I was trying to address was: "Yeah, in the past technology advances always created new jobs, this will happen with AI too, do not worry". And I am arguing that this time we are not sure it will work because the skill gap between - for instance - truck driver and self-driving-sensor-suite repairman is much bigger than the one between farmer and factory worker.

tdb7893 10y ago

I know individually people are going to have a hard time, that seems pretty obvious. The comment I was responding to was saying that technology was going to lead to less jobs overall and I was just pointing out that each specific technology has led to less jobs overall (otherwise generally the new tech wouldn't be worth it) but the economy as a whole generally creates jobs elsewhere to compensate. I was mainly wondering why he think the economy can't create the new jobs any more.

wott 10y ago
But anyone could transition from farmer/craftsman to factory worker. It needed less skills to repeat a small set of gestures all day long for months and years on an assembly line (being a cog in a machine) than were needed by the craftsman who excelled in his craft (highly skilled in one domain) and by the farmer who had to know and be able to do a bit of everything (not deep, but wide skills). But for the current/next transition...