8 ms·

Report: 47% of U.S. Jobs At Risk of Being Automated Out of Existence

60 points by up_and_up 13y ago

up_and_up 13y ago
Link to the source paper: http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_Paper_1.pdf http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/fil...
randomdata 13y ago
Somewhere around 90% of U.S. Jobs were automated out of existence in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Is this time different?
- salient 13y ago
  In the long run, I don't think so. You could argue change is happening much faster today, and people need to adapt to new jobs and skills faster, but on the other hand, there are also many more opportunities to choose from these days.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    More likely that change is happening much more slowly today.
  - wutbrodo 13y ago
    I think a difference is perhaps that the time investment required to adapt to the old automation was a lot less than that required to adapt to this one, while human lifespan hasn't categorically changed (the most dramatic shifts in life expectancy in the last century and a half have come in large part from infant mortality improvements). Working in a factory in the Industrial Revolution didn't require much training/education at all. Post-WWII, the shift in job-skills to essentially requiring literacy was dealth with by a society that tried to ensure that its citizens were educated enough, with great results. This time, starting around the 70s and 80s, we entirely failed to educate our populace to the point where the majority can be fully-productive members of the new job marketplace. It's becoming conventional wisdom that having only a high school degree (as a crude heuristic for skill level) is not enough to be productive economically, and this is becoming increasingly true of having a college degree where you don't learn anything useful. In every cycle of improved tools/higher skill bar, there are casualties that weren't able to improve their productivity fast enough; this is one of the uncommon cases where (in the US, at least), "people not keeping up" is a systemic issue instead of a transient one (I don't think the overall education system today is all that much better than 20 years ago). It's a "this-time-is-different" situation in a limited sense; that is, it's not inherent to the nature of the automation-cycle itself, but rather to the nature of our response to it. Note that this isn't some engineering-centric notion of needing immediately applicable skills from college. Studying something more academic in college has just as much value, as long as it's something that's useful (a good rule of thumb is "as long as you use the things you learned in college in the future"). I'm referring to the fact that it's long been the practice for many people to get a college degree in literally anything with the knowledge that the existence of the degree itself would be a good enough signal for intelligence/skills that you could get an okay job afterwards. This is increasingly untrue.
- hyperbovine 13y ago
  Interesting, that is a much higher number than I had supposed. Do you have a source / link for it? I'd love to read more.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    Mechanized farming.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Farmers dropped from 30 million to 3 million. http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm
- maxerickson 13y ago
  It depends on how fast we can find new material needs. We don't seem to be doing that very quickly though (in lots of areas we are regressing, becoming more efficient with our inputs).
- ck2 13y ago
  Yes, it costs radically more not to be homeless in 2014.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  Is there a difference between machines designed to perform a narrow set of very specialized tasks and machines designed to perform a broad set of very generalized tasks? If it's not different this time, it will eventually be. That's the goal.
- IvyMike 13y ago
  I guess it feels like there were other manual labor jobs to move to back in that day and age. But if nearly every manual labor and semi-skilled labor job is going to be automated, I don't know what those people will do. The people who dig ditches or drive trucks today are not going to be happy or excel in office jobs.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  This argument is a bit of a fallacy. See the following (schematic) graph, which illustrates the fallacy: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/human_vs_machine_progress.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/human_vs_machine_prog...
codegeek 13y ago
Another report: As more jobs are getting automated, it opens up "new" job opportunities in new fields that are coming up. So net effect: not much. Point being that for centuries, we have been automating things that were done by humans at some point in time. Not much different even today. Take one example of cellphones. It probably eliminated many "jobs" for people working in landline industries in the last decade or so BUT it probably added a lot more jobs in the telecom industry in general. EDIT: based on some replies, I am not dismissing the fact completely that automation can have impacts on jobs. They definitely do but the point is that the number of jobs themselves do not dimish. It is the "type" of job that is changed which could surely be a problem for the displaced workers because they might not have the new skillset/experience ready to be employed.
- acgourley 13y ago
  Are you actually citing another report or are you simply hoping this is true on the basis it's been true so far.
- arrrg 13y ago
  That is (very likely) true in the long run, but it would be foolish to overlook the short-term effects that can be devastating for many individuals. The weavers faced real problems, had a real existential crisis and struggled with real poverty and hunger for many decades. Yes, the industrial revolution brought a tremendous increase in wealth and living standards to everyone, but only eventually to everyone. It is tremendously important to take care of the people who are cast by the wayside by those changes.
  - mc32 13y ago
    I agree with this. Not sure how viable, but it'd be nice to see some kind of federal program which allowed for a 5-year transition program for people where their industries collapse precipitously (by some definition) and are guaranteed 100% their wages but must study/prepare for a new career. Not sure how to avoid the occasional dilly-dallier who thought they'd make a good chef, but maybe we'd just have to put up with that fact.
dferlemann 13y ago
Not even an estimated time schedule. Not like it's gonna suddenly drop 47% employment next year. It would be a slow process of replacing laborious jobs to intelligent jobs. Adapt and survive, isn't that how it suppose to be?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  We are at least somewhere close to the point where we can choose how we want it to be without paying any mind to how it is supposed to be.
andyl 13y ago
Is technology the problem, or public policy? http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/technology-middle-class-jobs-policy http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/technol...
f_salmon 13y ago
Money has a natural tendency to get more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. We need to start keeping an eye on this.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Clever of you to notice that.
yodsanklai 13y ago
I'd like for my work to be automated as long as I can keep my salary. But it's not going to work because I won't be the owner of the "machine" replacing me.
acgourley 13y ago
A thought experiment: Imagine a pre-singularity world with near-intelligent anthropomorphic robots which can do most manual tasks - including resource mining, food production and building more of themselves. Imagine most menial white collar jobs have been replaced by clever software written by people on this site. There are still some jobs for humans to do - in game design, fashion, service, music, etc. But any way you look at it, there are not enough jobs for everyone to do. Lets call this the "high unemployment future." Currently we exist in a "low unemployment present" but if you believe a "high unemployment future" is possible, you should reasonable believe we're smoothly approaching it. So if you think my thought experiment can come to pass - we need to be very concerned. If you're going to bring out the tired argument about how the cotton gin didn't cause mass unemployment, instead I would challenge you to paint a picture of a far off future where most jobs haven't evaporated.
- Crito 13y ago
  Exactly. Consider that automation would be pointless if replacing N foo-craftsmen with foo-machines necessitated the hiring of N equally expensive foo-machine repairmen and assemblers. Automation reduces jobs, wages, or both. Nevertheless, we should embrace it. Increasingly strong social safely nets can be used to take up the slack.
- owenmarshall 13y ago
  > So if you think my thought experiment can come to pass - we need to be very concerned. We only need to be concerned if we make the assumption that societal expectations won't adjust as well. "Hard work" is seen as a virtue; someone who takes government assistance is pitied at best, considered "parasitic" at worst. If we take those views into your world it will be a disaster. But instead the real question should be "why does everyone need to have a job?" If we provide for the needs of people displaced by the new machines, we'd free people up to pursue arts, philosophy, or even simple leisure. We'd be living in Bertrand Russell's paradise of 'idleness'.
  - acgourley 13y ago
    Right - each countries choices would be: 1. drastic wealth redistribution 2. revolution Working under the premise (2) should be avoided, I favor discussions around basic income.
nawitus 13y ago
The probability for software engineers is 4.2% in the paper. All jobs will be automated in 100 years in my opinion (if technological development continues). In fact, work itself will be automated away. (But some will continue to 'work' for other reasons than gatheting resources).
- nilkn 13y ago
  Bertrand Russell hoped for a similar future back in 1932: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
  - nawitus 13y ago
    Yeah, it's a prediction which has always been wrong. However, my prediction depends on the development of an artificial general intelligence which will make human work worthless.
Patrick_Devine 13y ago
With strong AI, wouldn't 100% of U.S. jobs be at risk? On the bright side, as software engineers, I would think our jobs will be the last to go. My guess is as a species we'll just find something else to do, just like we always do. Who knows, maybe inefficiency will become fashionable at some point.
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  > With strong AI, wouldn't 100% of U.S. jobs be at risk? On the bright side, as software engineers, I would think our jobs will be the last to go. If the strong AI is hostile, people tinkering with it might be the first to go - and not just as jobs. :)
- TheCoelacanth 13y ago
  Yes, but realistically, we are no where near strong AI. We're getting pretty good at making AIs to handle single specialized tasks, even ones that we consider very difficult, but making a generalized AI that can handle any task a human can is probably not going to happen in the near future.
  - Patrick_Devine 13y ago
    Yes, you're probably right. I'm glad I didn't heed the advice of my grade 12 computer science teacher in 1991. He was convinced that we wouldn't need programmers in the future because we'd have AI which could write software for us.
VLM 13y ago
The train example is a pretty bad one, I'm the first in four generations not to work for the local railroad and five union dudes on a train crew pretty much went away in the 1970s. You do typically have two guys and you really need two for safety as sometimes you need human eyes looking out both windows at once (freight trains have poor visibility compared to trucks). A freight train with one dude strikes me as unlikely. The few single person trains out there have excellent visibility for the one driver. So you'd have an interesting capital expense if you tried that with freight trains. I do know some small switcher locos run single person but thats in a barb-wired switchyard well away from the general public. So you'd "have to" eliminate all grade crossings or something, another big expense.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
cygwin98 13y ago
On the referenced pdf[1], there are two professions related to us: 130 0.042 Software Developers, Applications 293 0.48 Computer Programmer The former has 4% probability to lose to automation, while the later is 48%. What is the difference between the two? [1] http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_Paper_1.pdf http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/fil...
- TheCoelacanth 13y ago
  They appear to be using the BLS categorizations[1][2]. Essentially, the difference is that Computer Programmers do none of the planning or design that Software Developers do; they only do routine coding. Since Computer Programmers only do routine coding and none of the more intellectually challenging parts of software development, they can more easily be replaced by using higher-level languages or better tools. It's worth noting that Software Developers are already 3x more common than Computer Programmers and the number of Software Developers is increasing 10x as fast, so even many of the people who call themselves programmers are probably classified as Software Developers. [1] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/c... [2] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/s...
sluckxz 13y ago
I think PG's essay is an excellent compliment to articles like these. It certainly offered a perspective I hadn't ever considered. "Mind The Gap" http://paulgraham.com/gap.html http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
- dpweb 13y ago
  Thanks, hadn't re-read this PG essay in a while. It makes some good and important points, but if the theme is don't hate on the wealthy.. I don't think you can ignore the fact that many people don't believe the 100x productive/add value idea.. Although I think many of us technologists and/or capitalists know first hand that it is true, that is, it is possible.. But, all the wealth accumulation is not the result of a pure capitalism/reward system. 100x wealth does not necessarily equal a 100x contribution of value to society. There does exist undeserved rewards. That perception, sometimes true, sometimes not, is at the core of the wealth haters and quite a bit of outrage. Much wealth is controlled by entities that have quasi-governmental status, special protection and privileges (ie.. the entire banking system). Interestingly enough a more pure capitalist system may be more effective at leveling the field instead of a socialist system.
- dfraser992 13y ago
  Based on this, and other essays, I am beginning to suspect Paul Graham is the technological equivalent of David Brooks (the NYT columnist). I'm a well educated middle middle class white American and after reading this essay, I immediately groked how the non-white Other groups (gays, black, etc) in society get offended by the ignorant and simplistic assumptions or stereotypical thinking of the In groups (the politically correct brigade being outrageously sensitive to even mere nuances or surface details, of course, in a needless fashion). I am beginning to understand the various criticisms of the HN community... then again, my life has been much more varied than the average middle class American and I'd like to think I have a more comprehensive understanding of life (yeah, arrogant). Or I just think and read too much. Or maybe it is more a matter of values, and the values of rich white guys in Silicon Valley are hardly those of most of humanity. One's values are factors in the blinders you were while interpreting reality, along with whatever unconscious crap you're not dealing with (or maybe those feed into the values) and from that arises your attitudes, etc. Anyway, my immediate emotional reaction on reading this was WTF? I wasn't impressed.
stefan_kendall 13y ago
I wish I could hide luddite articles like this permanently. Technology improves efficiency, which eliminates the need for workers. Economics is not a zero-sum game, however. More money saved means more money invested, either by the individual or the bank in the case of pure savings. Easier lending means more businesses in more industries. Everyone didn't starve to death during the industrial revolution. Dock workers didn't just commit suicide en masse when most of them were obviated by the invention of the shipping container.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind! Faster! Get rid of all the jobs before people can get used to permanent unemployment-ridden depression! Push them into revolting!
RivieraKid 13y ago
The problem is that the relative price of human time decreases, while the relative price of land and resources increases. So wealth moves to people who own resources. Another problem is that the standard deviation of the price of human time is increasing. The typical example is someone of average intelligence who was an accountant but her job got automated. In general, jobs requiring an average intellect are disappearing and people who did these jobs are more often moving down (manual labor) than up (programmer, designer, etc.). So the real problem of automation is not unemployment – you can always find a slave-like job for a few bucks per hour – but wealth inequality.
wprl 13y ago
It's hard to see this is anything but the symptom of sick global economy, and a sick global society. Automation should be making people's lives better in the short term, not just in the hypothetical long term. We exist within a system that doesn't respect human life.
gremlinsinc 13y ago
I say AMEN! Imagine a society where 25 hour work weeks is the norm, everyone gets a living wage, some of it possibly subsidized by the government, -- each household earns a guaranteed 2500 per month to grow the economy. Every worker gets 4 weeks paid leave. Companies move from being self-serving to realizing if they make their employees super happy -- they will go out and buy their products, or other companies products - but support the economy in general and grow all companies. We are work-a-holics, and then we spend our weakest part of life sitting on our arses waiting to die- if we had more quality of life time to travel, see the world, spend time with our families, while in the prime of our life--time to pursue entrepreneurial ideas, philosophical/artistic endeavors... Not only would poverty be put to shame, but quality of life would rise universally. Sure, sounds like a Utopia, maybe it is, maybe it's what we're headed towards..it's not like there's not enough money floating around to pay for it...
jmt7les 13y ago
So that's why we learn algebra.

60 points by up_and_up 13y ago

Link to the source paper: http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_Paper_1.pdf http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/fil...

randomdata 13y ago

Somewhere around 90% of U.S. Jobs were automated out of existence in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Is this time different?

salient 13y ago
In the long run, I don't think so. You could argue change is happening much faster today, and people need to adapt to new jobs and skills faster, but on the other hand, there are also many more opportunities to choose from these days.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  More likely that change is happening much more slowly today.
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  I think a difference is perhaps that the time investment required to adapt to the old automation was a lot less than that required to adapt to this one, while human lifespan hasn't categorically changed (the most dramatic shifts in life expectancy in the last century and a half have come in large part from infant mortality improvements). Working in a factory in the Industrial Revolution didn't require much training/education at all. Post-WWII, the shift in job-skills to essentially requiring literacy was dealth with by a society that tried to ensure that its citizens were educated enough, with great results. This time, starting around the 70s and 80s, we entirely failed to educate our populace to the point where the majority can be fully-productive members of the new job marketplace. It's becoming conventional wisdom that having only a high school degree (as a crude heuristic for skill level) is not enough to be productive economically, and this is becoming increasingly true of having a college degree where you don't learn anything useful. In every cycle of improved tools/higher skill bar, there are casualties that weren't able to improve their productivity fast enough; this is one of the uncommon cases where (in the US, at least), "people not keeping up" is a systemic issue instead of a transient one (I don't think the overall education system today is all that much better than 20 years ago). It's a "this-time-is-different" situation in a limited sense; that is, it's not inherent to the nature of the automation-cycle itself, but rather to the nature of our response to it. Note that this isn't some engineering-centric notion of needing immediately applicable skills from college. Studying something more academic in college has just as much value, as long as it's something that's useful (a good rule of thumb is "as long as you use the things you learned in college in the future"). I'm referring to the fact that it's long been the practice for many people to get a college degree in literally anything with the knowledge that the existence of the degree itself would be a good enough signal for intelligence/skills that you could get an okay job afterwards. This is increasingly untrue.
hyperbovine 13y ago
Interesting, that is a much higher number than I had supposed. Do you have a source / link for it? I'd love to read more.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Mechanized farming.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Farmers dropped from 30 million to 3 million. http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm
maxerickson 13y ago
It depends on how fast we can find new material needs. We don't seem to be doing that very quickly though (in lots of areas we are regressing, becoming more efficient with our inputs).
ck2 13y ago
Yes, it costs radically more not to be homeless in 2014.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
Is there a difference between machines designed to perform a narrow set of very specialized tasks and machines designed to perform a broad set of very generalized tasks? If it's not different this time, it will eventually be. That's the goal.
IvyMike 13y ago
I guess it feels like there were other manual labor jobs to move to back in that day and age. But if nearly every manual labor and semi-skilled labor job is going to be automated, I don't know what those people will do. The people who dig ditches or drive trucks today are not going to be happy or excel in office jobs.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
yummyfajitas 13y ago
This argument is a bit of a fallacy. See the following (schematic) graph, which illustrates the fallacy: http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/human_vs_machine_progress.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/human_vs_machine_prog...

codegeek 13y ago

Another report: As more jobs are getting automated, it opens up "new" job opportunities in new fields that are coming up. So net effect: not much. Point being that for centuries, we have been automating things that were done by humans at some point in time. Not much different even today. Take one example of cellphones. It probably eliminated many "jobs" for people working in landline industries in the last decade or so BUT it probably added a lot more jobs in the telecom industry in general. EDIT: based on some replies, I am not dismissing the fact completely that automation can have impacts on jobs. They definitely do but the point is that the number of jobs themselves do not dimish. It is the "type" of job that is changed which could surely be a problem for the displaced workers because they might not have the new skillset/experience ready to be employed.

acgourley 13y ago
Are you actually citing another report or are you simply hoping this is true on the basis it's been true so far.
arrrg 13y ago
That is (very likely) true in the long run, but it would be foolish to overlook the short-term effects that can be devastating for many individuals. The weavers faced real problems, had a real existential crisis and struggled with real poverty and hunger for many decades. Yes, the industrial revolution brought a tremendous increase in wealth and living standards to everyone, but only eventually to everyone. It is tremendously important to take care of the people who are cast by the wayside by those changes.
- mc32 13y ago
  I agree with this. Not sure how viable, but it'd be nice to see some kind of federal program which allowed for a 5-year transition program for people where their industries collapse precipitously (by some definition) and are guaranteed 100% their wages but must study/prepare for a new career. Not sure how to avoid the occasional dilly-dallier who thought they'd make a good chef, but maybe we'd just have to put up with that fact.

dferlemann 13y ago

Not even an estimated time schedule. Not like it's gonna suddenly drop 47% employment next year. It would be a slow process of replacing laborious jobs to intelligent jobs. Adapt and survive, isn't that how it suppose to be?

maxerickson 13y ago
We are at least somewhere close to the point where we can choose how we want it to be without paying any mind to how it is supposed to be.

andyl 13y ago

Is technology the problem, or public policy? http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/technology-middle-class-jobs-policy http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/technol...

f_salmon 13y ago

Money has a natural tendency to get more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. We need to start keeping an eye on this.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Clever of you to notice that.

yodsanklai 13y ago

I'd like for my work to be automated as long as I can keep my salary. But it's not going to work because I won't be the owner of the "machine" replacing me.

acgourley 13y ago

A thought experiment: Imagine a pre-singularity world with near-intelligent anthropomorphic robots which can do most manual tasks - including resource mining, food production and building more of themselves. Imagine most menial white collar jobs have been replaced by clever software written by people on this site. There are still some jobs for humans to do - in game design, fashion, service, music, etc. But any way you look at it, there are not enough jobs for everyone to do. Lets call this the "high unemployment future." Currently we exist in a "low unemployment present" but if you believe a "high unemployment future" is possible, you should reasonable believe we're smoothly approaching it. So if you think my thought experiment can come to pass - we need to be very concerned. If you're going to bring out the tired argument about how the cotton gin didn't cause mass unemployment, instead I would challenge you to paint a picture of a far off future where most jobs haven't evaporated.

Crito 13y ago
Exactly. Consider that automation would be pointless if replacing N foo-craftsmen with foo-machines necessitated the hiring of N equally expensive foo-machine repairmen and assemblers. Automation reduces jobs, wages, or both. Nevertheless, we should embrace it. Increasingly strong social safely nets can be used to take up the slack.
owenmarshall 13y ago
> So if you think my thought experiment can come to pass - we need to be very concerned. We only need to be concerned if we make the assumption that societal expectations won't adjust as well. "Hard work" is seen as a virtue; someone who takes government assistance is pitied at best, considered "parasitic" at worst. If we take those views into your world it will be a disaster. But instead the real question should be "why does everyone need to have a job?" If we provide for the needs of people displaced by the new machines, we'd free people up to pursue arts, philosophy, or even simple leisure. We'd be living in Bertrand Russell's paradise of 'idleness'.
- acgourley 13y ago
  Right - each countries choices would be: 1. drastic wealth redistribution 2. revolution Working under the premise (2) should be avoided, I favor discussions around basic income.

nawitus 13y ago

The probability for software engineers is 4.2% in the paper. All jobs will be automated in 100 years in my opinion (if technological development continues). In fact, work itself will be automated away. (But some will continue to 'work' for other reasons than gatheting resources).

nilkn 13y ago
Bertrand Russell hoped for a similar future back in 1932: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- nawitus 13y ago
  Yeah, it's a prediction which has always been wrong. However, my prediction depends on the development of an artificial general intelligence which will make human work worthless.

Patrick_Devine 13y ago

With strong AI, wouldn't 100% of U.S. jobs be at risk? On the bright side, as software engineers, I would think our jobs will be the last to go. My guess is as a species we'll just find something else to do, just like we always do. Who knows, maybe inefficiency will become fashionable at some point.

Florin_Andrei 13y ago
> With strong AI, wouldn't 100% of U.S. jobs be at risk? On the bright side, as software engineers, I would think our jobs will be the last to go. If the strong AI is hostile, people tinkering with it might be the first to go - and not just as jobs. :)
TheCoelacanth 13y ago
Yes, but realistically, we are no where near strong AI. We're getting pretty good at making AIs to handle single specialized tasks, even ones that we consider very difficult, but making a generalized AI that can handle any task a human can is probably not going to happen in the near future.
- Patrick_Devine 13y ago
  Yes, you're probably right. I'm glad I didn't heed the advice of my grade 12 computer science teacher in 1991. He was convinced that we wouldn't need programmers in the future because we'd have AI which could write software for us.

VLM 13y ago

The train example is a pretty bad one, I'm the first in four generations not to work for the local railroad and five union dudes on a train crew pretty much went away in the 1970s. You do typically have two guys and you really need two for safety as sometimes you need human eyes looking out both windows at once (freight trains have poor visibility compared to trucks). A freight train with one dude strikes me as unlikely. The few single person trains out there have excellent visibility for the one driver. So you'd have an interesting capital expense if you tried that with freight trains. I do know some small switcher locos run single person but thats in a barb-wired switchyard well away from the general public. So you'd "have to" eliminate all grade crossings or something, another big expense.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

cygwin98 13y ago

On the referenced pdf[1], there are two professions related to us: 130 0.042 Software Developers, Applications 293 0.48 Computer Programmer The former has 4% probability to lose to automation, while the later is 48%. What is the difference between the two? [1] http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_Paper_1.pdf http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/fil...

TheCoelacanth 13y ago
They appear to be using the BLS categorizations[1][2]. Essentially, the difference is that Computer Programmers do none of the planning or design that Software Developers do; they only do routine coding. Since Computer Programmers only do routine coding and none of the more intellectually challenging parts of software development, they can more easily be replaced by using higher-level languages or better tools. It's worth noting that Software Developers are already 3x more common than Computer Programmers and the number of Software Developers is increasing 10x as fast, so even many of the people who call themselves programmers are probably classified as Software Developers. [1] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/c... [2] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/s...

sluckxz 13y ago

I think PG's essay is an excellent compliment to articles like these. It certainly offered a perspective I hadn't ever considered. "Mind The Gap" http://paulgraham.com/gap.html http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

dpweb 13y ago
Thanks, hadn't re-read this PG essay in a while. It makes some good and important points, but if the theme is don't hate on the wealthy.. I don't think you can ignore the fact that many people don't believe the 100x productive/add value idea.. Although I think many of us technologists and/or capitalists know first hand that it is true, that is, it is possible.. But, all the wealth accumulation is not the result of a pure capitalism/reward system. 100x wealth does not necessarily equal a 100x contribution of value to society. There does exist undeserved rewards. That perception, sometimes true, sometimes not, is at the core of the wealth haters and quite a bit of outrage. Much wealth is controlled by entities that have quasi-governmental status, special protection and privileges (ie.. the entire banking system). Interestingly enough a more pure capitalist system may be more effective at leveling the field instead of a socialist system.
dfraser992 13y ago
Based on this, and other essays, I am beginning to suspect Paul Graham is the technological equivalent of David Brooks (the NYT columnist). I'm a well educated middle middle class white American and after reading this essay, I immediately groked how the non-white Other groups (gays, black, etc) in society get offended by the ignorant and simplistic assumptions or stereotypical thinking of the In groups (the politically correct brigade being outrageously sensitive to even mere nuances or surface details, of course, in a needless fashion). I am beginning to understand the various criticisms of the HN community... then again, my life has been much more varied than the average middle class American and I'd like to think I have a more comprehensive understanding of life (yeah, arrogant). Or I just think and read too much. Or maybe it is more a matter of values, and the values of rich white guys in Silicon Valley are hardly those of most of humanity. One's values are factors in the blinders you were while interpreting reality, along with whatever unconscious crap you're not dealing with (or maybe those feed into the values) and from that arises your attitudes, etc. Anyway, my immediate emotional reaction on reading this was WTF? I wasn't impressed.

stefan_kendall 13y ago

I wish I could hide luddite articles like this permanently. Technology improves efficiency, which eliminates the need for workers. Economics is not a zero-sum game, however. More money saved means more money invested, either by the individual or the bank in the case of pure savings. Easier lending means more businesses in more industries. Everyone didn't starve to death during the industrial revolution. Dock workers didn't just commit suicide en masse when most of them were obviated by the invention of the shipping container.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind! Faster! Get rid of all the jobs before people can get used to permanent unemployment-ridden depression! Push them into revolting!

RivieraKid 13y ago

The problem is that the relative price of human time decreases, while the relative price of land and resources increases. So wealth moves to people who own resources. Another problem is that the standard deviation of the price of human time is increasing. The typical example is someone of average intelligence who was an accountant but her job got automated. In general, jobs requiring an average intellect are disappearing and people who did these jobs are more often moving down (manual labor) than up (programmer, designer, etc.). So the real problem of automation is not unemployment – you can always find a slave-like job for a few bucks per hour – but wealth inequality.

wprl 13y ago

It's hard to see this is anything but the symptom of sick global economy, and a sick global society. Automation should be making people's lives better in the short term, not just in the hypothetical long term. We exist within a system that doesn't respect human life.

gremlinsinc 13y ago

I say AMEN! Imagine a society where 25 hour work weeks is the norm, everyone gets a living wage, some of it possibly subsidized by the government, -- each household earns a guaranteed 2500 per month to grow the economy. Every worker gets 4 weeks paid leave. Companies move from being self-serving to realizing if they make their employees super happy -- they will go out and buy their products, or other companies products - but support the economy in general and grow all companies. We are work-a-holics, and then we spend our weakest part of life sitting on our arses waiting to die- if we had more quality of life time to travel, see the world, spend time with our families, while in the prime of our life--time to pursue entrepreneurial ideas, philosophical/artistic endeavors... Not only would poverty be put to shame, but quality of life would rise universally. Sure, sounds like a Utopia, maybe it is, maybe it's what we're headed towards..it's not like there's not enough money floating around to pay for it...

jmt7les 13y ago

So that's why we learn algebra.