Post by ak47 on Oct 18, 2004 20:10:50 GMT -5
This quote got so many comments, let me post it again by itself. It comes from Robotic Nation:
The conventional wisdom says that the economy will create 50 million new jobs to absorb all of the workers who are displaced from their jobs by robots. But that raises two important questions:
What will those new jobs be? They won't be in manufacturing -- robots will hold all the manufacturing jobs. They won't be in the service sector (where most new jobs are now) -- robots will work in all the restaurants, retail stores and convenience stores. They won't be in transportation -- robots will be driving everything. They won't be in:
security (robotic police, robotic firefighters)
the military (robotic soldiers)
entertainment (robotic actors and stuntmen)
medicine (robotic doctors, nurses, pharmacists, counselors, caregivers)
construction (robotic construction workers)
aviation (robotic pilots, robotic air traffic controllers)
office work (robotic receptionists, call centers and managers)
research (robotic scientists, robotic inventors)
education (robotic teachers and computer-based training)
programming or engineering (outsourced to India at one-tenth the cost)
farming (robotic agricultural machinery)
etc., etc.
We are assuming that the economy is going to invent an entirely new category of employment that will absorb half of the working population.
Why isn't the economy inventing those new jobs now? Today there are millions of unemployed people. There are also tens of millions of people who would gladly abandon their minimum wage jobs scrubbing toilets, flipping burgers, driving trucks and shelving inventory for something better. This imaginary new category of employment does not hinge on technology -- it is going to employ people, after all, in massive numbers -- it is going to employ half of today's working population. Why don't we see any evidence of this new category of jobs today?
It is something to think about...
The conventional wisdom says that the economy will create 50 million new jobs to absorb all of the workers who are displaced from their jobs by robots. But that raises two important questions:
What will those new jobs be? They won't be in manufacturing -- robots will hold all the manufacturing jobs. They won't be in the service sector (where most new jobs are now) -- robots will work in all the restaurants, retail stores and convenience stores. They won't be in transportation -- robots will be driving everything. They won't be in:
security (robotic police, robotic firefighters)
the military (robotic soldiers)
entertainment (robotic actors and stuntmen)
medicine (robotic doctors, nurses, pharmacists, counselors, caregivers)
construction (robotic construction workers)
aviation (robotic pilots, robotic air traffic controllers)
office work (robotic receptionists, call centers and managers)
research (robotic scientists, robotic inventors)
education (robotic teachers and computer-based training)
programming or engineering (outsourced to India at one-tenth the cost)
farming (robotic agricultural machinery)
etc., etc.
We are assuming that the economy is going to invent an entirely new category of employment that will absorb half of the working population.
Why isn't the economy inventing those new jobs now? Today there are millions of unemployed people. There are also tens of millions of people who would gladly abandon their minimum wage jobs scrubbing toilets, flipping burgers, driving trucks and shelving inventory for something better. This imaginary new category of employment does not hinge on technology -- it is going to employ people, after all, in massive numbers -- it is going to employ half of today's working population. Why don't we see any evidence of this new category of jobs today?
It is something to think about...
roboticnation.blogspot.com/2004/03/robots-taking-jobs.html
roboticnation.blogspot.com/
read this (well worth a read): www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm