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In Estonia we largely don't have human cashiers in grocery stores anymore. What a few years ago was almost entirely human driven thing is now almost entirely au
by askonomm 3y ago
In Estonia we largely don't have human cashiers in grocery stores anymore. What a few years ago was almost entirely human driven thing is now almost entirely automated registries, with only 1 person overseeing any potential issues. The vast majority of cashiers are now unemployed, and need to figure out how to get a new job or a new skill, which can be hard to do if you previously made minimum wage, lived paycheck to paycheck, and don't have the luxury of time.
Another such job that is disappearing in Estonia is food (https://www.starship.xyz/ https://www.starship.xyz/) and package delivery (https://www.dpd.com/cn/en/2022/08/09/self-driving-delivery-robot-for-the-first-time-in-estonia/ https://www.dpd.com/cn/en/2022/08/09/self-driving-delivery-r...), which we are also replacing with robots, meaning all those people will soon be unemployed, if not already in some amount.
I have a hard time seeing how automation helps these people. And these people are growing a disdain towards people like me, tech people, who put them out of work. Low-skilled jobs are becoming increasingly scarce to find, and with people not having resources or time to level up their education, they are stuck. I know many people like this myself. Struggling to pay bills, no light at the end of the tunnel.
If the government would give some support to these people misplaced by automation, maybe it would help lift these people out of poverty indeed, but that's not happening. There is no support. These people are on their own.
- staunton 3y agoIt seems, however, that AI development (as opposed to what automation has been doing so far) will to a large part affect higher-income jobs. Your examples are "old-school automation" and don't involve AI. It's quite possible, for example, that the value of "skilled jobs" and "knowledge work" will go down because it's easier to automate if you don't need to build hardware to manipulate things in the world.
- askonomm 3y agoI think I agree with you. Seeing how something as rudimentary still (in regards to the potential it has) such as Github Copilot makes me write code approx. 30% faster simply by auto-completing the mundane, boring bits of code for me, I'm pretty sure this would have the domino effect that a company can soon not need as many software developers anymore, since 3 devs can do the job of 4 devs.
- snowpid 3y ago"do you have any statistics, sources for your claim of disappearing jobs?