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The first job I automated out of existence was by incorporating a "print all" button into an existing application. We had to hire someone, full time, to open ea

by columbo 14y ago

The first job I automated out of existence was by incorporating a "print all" button into an existing application. We had to hire someone, full time, to open each document and print it. I don't think anyone really knows what the future will look like in thirty years. All we know is the genie is out of the bottle and nobody is going to put it back in. Maybe we're headed for a dystopic corporatist future where everything is monitored, calculated and automated to such a degree that people are simply told what to buy at regular intervals. Mass acceptance will lead to computers dictating through goal posting, achievements and leaderboards the vast majority of each individual's lives. Maybe we'll simply have 80% unemployment; towering concrete skyscrapers that would rival the soviet era Paneláks with automated trains sending food in and taking waste out. Like a human powered coal plant. The vast numbers of unemployed will churn daily riots and huge sections of the country will be under military control. There will be an unspoken but utterly clear separation between the decision makers and those in the bread lines. Maybe we'll come up with entirely new sectors in biology, space and automation which will usher in the real space-age of humanity. My hope: We'll make some breakthroughs in science, mathematics, medicine and technology. New sectors will be created that nobody ever thought of, a few new billionaires will be added to the pile, our quality of life will improve and the threat of our complete and utter demise will have been greatly exaggerated.

ptvan 14y ago
for those contemplating a dystopian future, it's good to remember that great comic from http://www.recombinantrecords.net/2009/05/24/amusing-ourselves-to-death/ http://www.recombinantrecords.net/2009/05/24/amusing-ourselv... unfortunately, they had to take it down, but here's the punchline: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500... I think in the west, we're mainly controlled by entertainment, not violence. (I guess you could call it intellectual/emotional violence.) http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500...
- ptvan 14y ago
  I found the full version of the comic http://fatpita.net/?i=1952 http://fatpita.net/?i=1952
  - qu4z-2 14y ago
    I can also recommend the book that the comic is taken from. (Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman)
jcampbell1 14y ago
> Maybe we'll simply have 80% unemployment; We already do depending on how you look at it. 150 years ago 95% percent of the population worked on providing basic needs, like food, shelter, clothing, etc. In modern economies like the US, less than 3% of the population works in agriculture. We already live in this so called dystopia where people work on making social networks, inventing treatments for obscure diseases, or making triple soy lattes. All of these things are pointless for survival. The "dystopia" you describe is already here, and it is a wonderful place to live.
- scarmig 14y ago
  That's more than a wee bit different than the parent's scenario. It's about interaction with the formal economy. Making a complicated camera or the social network to share its photos might not be necessary for survival, but it is the result of a series of conscious economic decisions to satisfy some human desires by all parties involved. Unemployment simply means someone providing nothing in that sphere. Interestingly, it's happening even now. Much of the apparent decline in unemployment seems to be coming from people dropping outside of the workforce permanently, not people having their desire to participate in the economy satisfied. What happens if/when this trend continues to 60%? 50%? 40%? My ideal solution would be a basic income guarantee and a cultural acceptance of people working only in the gray or uncompensated sectors, but we'll see if the political impetus for that ever occurs. Edited to add: well, apparently author leads up to the same suggested solution I do. A thousand jackass points for me =)
  - jcampbell1 14y ago
    > My ideal solution would be a basic income guarantee A bit of Econ 101. Structural unemployment is caused by income guarantees and minimum wages. This is why we don't do that, and instead use programs like EITC (a wage multiplier for low income people). Your ideal solution has been tried. It sucks, and we have moved on to better solutions to income allocation. I sincerely hope we move forward with larger income leveling policies, but I am grateful you are not designing them.
    - 14y ago
quadlock 14y ago
The guy doing the "print all" job spent months looking for a new "print" related job, worked a McD's for a while and eventually went back to school to be retrained and is now employed as filterer for 'inappropriate' images on a social network. So, don't feel too bad.
jonny_eh 14y ago
Who will build the concrete skyscrapers?
- mjmahone17 14y ago
  Why not machines?
LarryMade2 14y ago
I think we probably will get back to having a lot of service jobs. Computers can do the job but they aren't all that understanding, with a large portion of the world aging and not dying, we are going to have a lot of need for assistance, care, entertainment services. Maybe not more construction (cept the areas where the folks flooded out of the coasts go) but probably a lot of repair and reconstruction because we have let a lot of our transportation/utility infrastructure go to pot. Current barrier is the mentality those jobs are lame, lack of affordable vocational training, and the uncertain pay for those jobs. A lot of our society is geared for "toss it and get a new one," not fix what you already got.
beatpanda 14y ago
It's also worth pointing out that sometimes automation helps create an increase in production of things with no commercial potential but potentially high artistic or social potential. I worked for a nonprofit that was in the business of not paying people to manually complete a bunch of tasks, and barely staying afloat even then. I spent about 8 months helping them automate a bunch of processes, so that they're now able to provide more social services with fewer people. Someone might have "lost a job", theoretically, but nobody was paying them anyway. Now the organization gets to spend more money paying talented people to come up with and implement interesting programming, instead of, say, manually reconciling a checkbook.

by columbo 14y ago

ptvan 14y ago

for those contemplating a dystopian future, it's good to remember that great comic from http://www.recombinantrecords.net/2009/05/24/amusing-ourselves-to-death/ http://www.recombinantrecords.net/2009/05/24/amusing-ourselv... unfortunately, they had to take it down, but here's the punchline: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500... I think in the west, we're mainly controlled by entertainment, not violence. (I guess you could call it intellectual/emotional violence.) http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt5pgoInM81qaoem1o1_r1_500...

ptvan 14y ago
I found the full version of the comic http://fatpita.net/?i=1952 http://fatpita.net/?i=1952
- qu4z-2 14y ago
  I can also recommend the book that the comic is taken from. (Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman)

jcampbell1 14y ago

> Maybe we'll simply have 80% unemployment; We already do depending on how you look at it. 150 years ago 95% percent of the population worked on providing basic needs, like food, shelter, clothing, etc. In modern economies like the US, less than 3% of the population works in agriculture. We already live in this so called dystopia where people work on making social networks, inventing treatments for obscure diseases, or making triple soy lattes. All of these things are pointless for survival. The "dystopia" you describe is already here, and it is a wonderful place to live.

scarmig 14y ago
That's more than a wee bit different than the parent's scenario. It's about interaction with the formal economy. Making a complicated camera or the social network to share its photos might not be necessary for survival, but it is the result of a series of conscious economic decisions to satisfy some human desires by all parties involved. Unemployment simply means someone providing nothing in that sphere. Interestingly, it's happening even now. Much of the apparent decline in unemployment seems to be coming from people dropping outside of the workforce permanently, not people having their desire to participate in the economy satisfied. What happens if/when this trend continues to 60%? 50%? 40%? My ideal solution would be a basic income guarantee and a cultural acceptance of people working only in the gray or uncompensated sectors, but we'll see if the political impetus for that ever occurs. Edited to add: well, apparently author leads up to the same suggested solution I do. A thousand jackass points for me =)
- jcampbell1 14y ago
  > My ideal solution would be a basic income guarantee A bit of Econ 101. Structural unemployment is caused by income guarantees and minimum wages. This is why we don't do that, and instead use programs like EITC (a wage multiplier for low income people). Your ideal solution has been tried. It sucks, and we have moved on to better solutions to income allocation. I sincerely hope we move forward with larger income leveling policies, but I am grateful you are not designing them.
  - 14y ago

quadlock 14y ago

The guy doing the "print all" job spent months looking for a new "print" related job, worked a McD's for a while and eventually went back to school to be retrained and is now employed as filterer for 'inappropriate' images on a social network. So, don't feel too bad.

jonny_eh 14y ago

Who will build the concrete skyscrapers?

mjmahone17 14y ago
Why not machines?

LarryMade2 14y ago

I think we probably will get back to having a lot of service jobs. Computers can do the job but they aren't all that understanding, with a large portion of the world aging and not dying, we are going to have a lot of need for assistance, care, entertainment services. Maybe not more construction (cept the areas where the folks flooded out of the coasts go) but probably a lot of repair and reconstruction because we have let a lot of our transportation/utility infrastructure go to pot. Current barrier is the mentality those jobs are lame, lack of affordable vocational training, and the uncertain pay for those jobs. A lot of our society is geared for "toss it and get a new one," not fix what you already got.

beatpanda 14y ago

It's also worth pointing out that sometimes automation helps create an increase in production of things with no commercial potential but potentially high artistic or social potential. I worked for a nonprofit that was in the business of not paying people to manually complete a bunch of tasks, and barely staying afloat even then. I spent about 8 months helping them automate a bunch of processes, so that they're now able to provide more social services with fewer people. Someone might have "lost a job", theoretically, but nobody was paying them anyway. Now the organization gets to spend more money paying talented people to come up with and implement interesting programming, instead of, say, manually reconciling a checkbook.