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In my opinion the BART kiosk employee is a bad example of a job that can be automated. The fact is her job is already automated and probably why we don't have 1
by chrischen 13y ago
In my opinion the BART kiosk employee is a bad example of a job that can be automated. The fact is her job is already automated and probably why we don't have 10 of those kiosk workers per station handing out tickets and processing them by hand.
Her job is really just catching the 10-20% of people who don't know how to use tech that need hands on support at the stations, and random other odd jobs at the station that in fact can't be automated or automated to the same level of quality.
- yaddayadda 13y ago"Her job is really just catching the 10-20% of people who don't know how to use tech..." or people that need something that current tech simply doesn't provide. The last time I traveled to another big city I actually sought assistance from the metro kiosk worker - information that wasn't limited to metro data. Could I have gotten the info I needed in other ways - yes, but it would have taken me longer than the time I had available. The kiosk worker was familiar with the area and the metro and was able to address my needs in a way that technology simply can't (at this point).
- NamTaf 13y agoPrecisely. The job is already automated; the worker is a value-add resource. That's not entirely unlike what many other 'advanced' roles do, just in a different form. The same applies to technical support - for the most part, there's FAQs and the like to resolve common problems, but also additionally there's tech support people who can value-add by solving the more difficult, fuzzier issues.
- rrwhite 13y agoExactly. Customer service jobs are actually increasing in pay and sophistication because there's less overall work to be done but what's left behind after automation is more complex.