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The entire premise of this article is based on the old fashioned idea that "work" will always be performed by humans and that human labor will always be in dema
by riskable 10y ago
The entire premise of this article is based on the old fashioned idea that "work" will always be performed by humans and that human labor will always be in demand. I mean, it literally opens up with this:
"In a decade, who's going to fix your vehicle, deliver your mail or landscape your yard?"
Whoah there! Don't you mean, "what is going to fix your vehicle, deliver your mail, or landscape your yard"?
Now that we've injected some reality into the situation I think the answer is quite straightforward: Robots (and other forms of automation).
Bearing that in mind is it really all that surprising that kids want to go into entertainment in large numbers? Logically, if robots take over all the "physical work" humans have traditionally occupied going into entertainment seems like the perfect solution.
Entertainment can be produced from nothing, can be delivered to a nearly infinite audience size thanks to the Internet, and has no upper bound on how much can be produced or consumed in any given time frame. It seems like the perfect replacement to fill all those gaps in human labor.
Also, with robots replacing so much "work" it should--in theory--free up the time of so many humans that would otherwise be working hard for basically no reason other than to earn some money. That means there's going to be more demand for entertainment as well.
There's always going to be a wide variety of human occupations but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if 70% or more of the "workforce" is occupied by various forms of entertainment in the future.
- lowbloodsugar 10y ago"My" vehicle? Who owns a vehicle except crusty old greybeard gear heads?
- eveningcoffee 10y agoThere is a point that gets most of the time overlooked. Personal vehicles provide the freedom of movement. I am afraid that by loosing the class of vehicle owners we will loose a large part of our freedom. I do not like the perspective that most of the transportation would be controlled by few multinational companies.
- lowbloodsugar 10y agoI don't like that my food, news, healthcare, internet connection and politicians are controlled by a few multinational companies, but thanks to that last one, we're stuck with it.
- andyjsong 10y agoShameless plug, but this is one of the reasons why my company makes musical instruments anyone can play. Currently, of the people that know how to play a musical instruments, 91% started before the age of 14. [1] and only 12% of the US population knows how to play a musical instrument [2]. We hope to change that by making music playing more accessible to everyone starting with a guitar. [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/qh58bojug92segl/NAMM%202011%20Gallup%20Poll.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/qh58bojug92segl/NAMM%202011%20Gall... [2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqmrxdqoz4tjehk/US%20adults%20who%20play%20a%20musical%20instrument.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqmrxdqoz4tjehk/US%20adults%20who%...
- dTal 10y agoThe idea that shiny robots will be landscaping your yard in 10 years is a pipe dream. Show me the robot, even the prototype, that can (for example): -identify a tree that needs straightening -dig it out without damaging the root system -reseat the tree -fill in the hole -drive stakes in the ground to keep it straight -tether the tree to the stakes -identify when the tethers are choking the tree and retether -identify when the stakes when no longer necessary and remove them Even the likes of Boston Dynamics can barely make a robot that walks. Even in sectors like manufacturing, where automation has "almost" taken over and the market massively rewards the elimination of human, labor, you still need people to mollycoddle the machines, people to carry the rejects to the crusher, people to drive the forklifts and load the trucks. I suspect that people that pigeonhole all blue collar jobs into "done by idiots, ergo easily automated", have never worked in such a job. We've had machines for centuries now, and we're only just beginning to tackle the hard problem of making computers flexible enough to handle all the edge cases.