I don't really seem much evidence for this, we've been continually automating/improving efficiency in a bunch of industries for over 200 years and yet we've still got plenty of employment...
McDonalds workers due to strike for £10 an hour...
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I don't really seem much evidence for this, we've been continually automating/improving efficiency in a bunch of industries for over 200 years and yet we've still got plenty of employment...
We have reached the point there where machines abililty and programming is not really an issue any more, and we are tipping into cost benefit ratio.
Actually thinking about the strike more, it makes even less sense, considering McDonalds is a franchise, and the stores are independently owned.
I'm not sure what you're referring to, can you be more specific - what was an issue previously that isn't an issue now?
Manufacturing costs for the machines to do the job have fallen off greatly as more and more of them are being built.
Ability to programme finer details and better abilities of sensors arms etc. But mostly its cost driven, its not as expensive to get the programming done.
Have cousin who worked for Fujisu for years doing exactly this kind of stuff for automation.
well exactly, that sort of thing has been happening for years...you're not pointing out anything new or different happening and we're at a record high for employment... so the mass unemployment due to increasing automation argument seems to be a bit dubious...
Historically, automation through machinery has only affected low skilled jobs, of which there are an abundance. And the automation itself created new jobs at higher skill levels. At national levels, employment wasn't historically affected simply due to the scale, but locally there were big changes when factories shutdown etc.
Technology now and going forwards will be affecting people at much higher skill levels, and their wont necessarily be alternative work for the people affected.
Technology in certain field have seen massive improvements in a short period of time, combined with advances in available computation, sensing, and battery tech there is a whole host of new opportunities waiting to replace humans. 10-15 years ago many things were simply physicaly impossible to do with the technologies available at the time.
Technology now and going forwards will be affecting people at much higher skill levels, and their wont necessarily be alternative work for the people affected.
Technology in certain field have seen massive improvements in a short period of time, combined with advances in available computation, sensing, and battery tech there is a whole host of new opportunities waiting to replace humans. 10-15 years ago many things were simply physicaly impossible to do with the technologies available at the time.
Soldato
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I worked at McDonald's when I was 17 for £4.25 an hour. I turned 18 and it was increased to £4.50 an hour and I did 8h on Sundays (note that this was the same as the £30 EMA some people got for free).
I moved to Tesco where the pay was £6.01 per hour and 1.5x Sunday, so double pay (£9.01 vs. £4.50).
The point I am making is if you don't like something then move job. I have done this many times in life, upping my pay each time. Whilst hourly paid jobs don't have pay negotiations, the idea of going on strike because you want more money goes against the contract you signed up for in the first place. Donkey work = Crap pay.
We all need the 'joke' jobs in life. You aren't supposed to stay as they are stepping stones. It is not the employer's fault if an individual lacks ambition.
I have cleaned toilets, pushed trolleys, been on checkouts, worked nights stacking shelves, plus the aforementioned McJob.
The problem is that in unskilled jobs there are more people wanting the work than there are positions available, which is you get treated/paid badly. This shows why it is so important to take on some form of training to better yourself.
I moved to Tesco where the pay was £6.01 per hour and 1.5x Sunday, so double pay (£9.01 vs. £4.50).
The point I am making is if you don't like something then move job. I have done this many times in life, upping my pay each time. Whilst hourly paid jobs don't have pay negotiations, the idea of going on strike because you want more money goes against the contract you signed up for in the first place. Donkey work = Crap pay.
We all need the 'joke' jobs in life. You aren't supposed to stay as they are stepping stones. It is not the employer's fault if an individual lacks ambition.
I have cleaned toilets, pushed trolleys, been on checkouts, worked nights stacking shelves, plus the aforementioned McJob.
The problem is that in unskilled jobs there are more people wanting the work than there are positions available, which is you get treated/paid badly. This shows why it is so important to take on some form of training to better yourself.
That's not true, accountants, actuaries, doctors, lawyers etc.. all make use of technology and have done so for the past few decades yet those professions have been around for a lot longer, pre-date the invention of the computer and yet we don't seem them wiped out, just made more efficient and able to do more than if they had to use pen and paper.
That's the point, technology has improved over the years and that is what has happened, they haven't been replaced they've simple been able to do more, be more efficient, there haven't been mass sackings of these skilled professionals because of this increased efficiency but rather the service they're able to provide has been improved!
So supposing you automate a large portion of what a radiologist does re: interpreting scans thanks to recent improvements in machine vision whereby a machine can spot cancer better then a human expert, it doesn't necessarily mean you start sacking radiologists but rather you improve their efficiency, more MRIs can be processed by the same person, fewer errors made. Perhaps they can concentrate more on the interventionists side of their profession etc..
Theres a lot of folk who think they are skilled because their arse sits polishing a chair 9-5 with their elbows resting on the desk. Most of these people couldn't handle a manual job on their feet for 12 hours a day then get up and do it again 5 times a week.
Funnily enough accountants and doctors (GPs) are next in line to be able to be fully autonomous with computer AI. That's not to say they will wipe out those professions, but it will give people access to automated services that will be just as good as the human option, reducing the number of human ones required.
I'm more worried about low skilled jobs. The company I work for has 3 sort centres. I work the oldest and we need far more staff than the newest. The newest runs one 8 hour shift instead of three, and needs less than half the staff to process around the same volume we do per day. The drop in man-hours it's phenomenal. Great for the company, terrible for the staff we won't need.
How long until the shelves at Tesco restock themselves? Of the burgers at McDonald's are cooked and built by machine. I'm surprised companies aren't already shedding cleaning staff to replace them with roombas.
This is just handwaving, 'AI' has been around for decades, we've seen some great progress recently in NLP and vision thanks to neural nets coming into fashion again but the idea of mass sackings of doctors seems rather far off, at best it seems you'll just be able to automate certain aspects of their jobs and give them more time to do other things. It isn't like medical technology hasn't been improving over the past few decades, yet we've not seen these supposed mass sackings.
Perhaps some accountants doing something incredibly mundane and repetitive are replaceable, but I suspect not quite so easily as some tech firms might envisage.
I'm not worried at all about that, it is low skilled, repetitive work that has been replaced continually over the last couple of centuries. Sure we don't need armies of people working in cotton mills any more and we don't need so many people working in farming... since theses things are far more efficient now. Wiping out/automating mundane tasks is a good thing IMO.
It's a good thing if we can find something to do with the low skilled staff. We don't need nearly as many skilled staff so mass training isn't an answer.
Well in 200 years of increased progress and automation it doesn't seem to have been an issue... sure in certain areas where say coal mines have closed down you get pockets of unemployment - though across the country as a whole jobs are available and unemployment is low. Some people won't want to move to find work or actively seek to retrain or will expect to be given a job on a plate - that's up to them.
I'm sure the ghettos of British cities would agree in different universe.
no one has claimed that there aren't any unemployed people just that employment is at record high levels