If the middle class is smart (not necessarily a given), it will start taking classes on the arduino, the raspberry pi, and SCADA. There will still be quite a number of jobs, as robotic engineers and support techs.
a recent University of Oxford study concluded that there is a 92 percent chance that most fast food jobs will be automated in the coming years...
So let me get this straight:
1. There was a study at Oxford
2. It's conclusions can be applied to "most" (non-quantified) fast food jobs
3. The time-frame for its prediction is "the coming years" (non-quantified)
4. It concludes with an accuracy of "92 percent"
So we have an NON-QUANTIFIED prediction of an event to take place in an NON-QUANTIFIED period of time with an accuracy of EXACTLY 92 PERCENT!
Wow. That's pretty freaking good.
My only question is, why did they limit themselves?
Why not claim 93 PERCENT???
Shows you how freaking ridiculous "studies" can be... along with the articles that uncritically report them.
Are they unionized? Will they be allowed to vote? If both are true we are doomed.
Luddites of the world UNITE!
Just yesterday I was thinking about all of the entry level jobs that have disappeared since I was a boy. Other than those of you who live in states which ban self-pumped gas stations, has anyone had their gas pumped, oil & tire pressure checked & windshield washed lately?
Those evil Caterpillar and Mack dump truck companies have taken all the jobs of those who used to move dirt in wheel barrows or with large baskets carried on their heads.
Yellow Cab totally obliterated the rickshaw pullers in the USA!
Supermarkets doomed the milkman.
Radio and the printing press sent all of the town criers to the poorhouse.
Elevators made unemployed destitutes of all those folks who used to sit on their stools on every 10th floor stair landing of high rise buildings, ready to give CPR & oxygen to exhausted climbers! /s
Oh, the Huge Manatee!
McDonalds orders 7000 touchscreen kiosks to replace cashiers
If you think we have unemployment now, just wait until robots take over and occupy (former) American jobs!
I think this is the right course and it is also the right course for America. The problem is in the long run political rather than technological because robots will undeniably put lower skilled people out of work even as it creates high paying jobs for high skilled innovators. The Democrat party, and increasingly the Republican Party, will demagogue this situation and insist that the government solve these dislocations. The unintended consequences resulting will no doubt impose a very heavy burden on the economy and take a severe toll on individual liberty.
Even worse, the Democrat party is preparing to flood our country with tens of millions of illiterate and unskilled workers who will now have to compete not just with Americans for jobs but with American robots for jobs. If the dislocations becomes severe enough we have the raw tinder for spontaneous combustion, a situation desirable to anyone who seeks to fundamentally transform America.
For conservatives the challenge will be to find a way to maintain opportunity in an increasingly complex and technologically challenging world for our aging population and for our broader society with an utterly failed educational system. Wealth will be created by machines and distributed according to capital and technical know-how, leaving millions adrift. If we do not want the government to take over the distribution of those profits, we better come up with some creative solutions that preserve freedom, give the technologically challenged a stake in the political system without making them dependent, yet leaving undisturbed incentives for the creative to do their thing.
I gladly would be waiting for robotics to take over in the kitchens and cook areas of fast food joints. At least a robot won’t spit in your food.
This has actually been going on for hundreds of years. It’s just accelerating a bit now.
Society will adjust...
Hmmm, perhaps robot repair or computer programming.
Eliminate the minimum wage.
This little snippet tells all there is you need to know about this article. What ignorant crap.
The key is not worrying about or outlawing robots, the key is to change bloated, bureaucratic regulations and excessive taxation that make it difficult or impossible to have competitive industry and free enterprise in this country.
Make it easier for people to make money in industry, and the employment issues will improve.
Instead, you get people sniveling that the employers have the upper hand on employees because they employee can be replaced by a robot.
In my opinion, the onus is on the worker to provide value to the employer, not on the employer to provide a job, pay and benefits. In a well run business, if a worker provides value to their employer, they should (and often are) compensated.
What better definition of a robot is there?
It means WE DONT NEED TO IMPORT MILLIONS of cheap laborers from Mexico. Immigration policy should be designed to benefit Americans, not illegals, and not the Chamber of Commerce.
Gives a whole new meaning to the term, "entry level job."
Now, that is funny. We have a group of uneducated, refused to be educated, demanding that businesses should pay them more money that what they are worth, and businesses are just saying: “NOPE, WE’LL JUST HIRE OURSEVES SOME ROBOTS, TO DO THE JOB FOR NOTHING”. Just think about it. No head aches, trying to mollify all these ignorant people. No more outside signs saying “EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK”. Or “WE WANT $25/HR. FOR DOING NOTHING”.
“When you replace a human worker with a robot, you solve a whole bunch of problems.”
And you create a whole new set of problems that must be dealt with.
“Robots never take a day off, they never get tired, they never get sick, they never complain, they never show up late”
But when they do somebody has to fix or replace them.
If I were a young man, I believe I would be looking at new opportunities in the field of robotics and getting an education or experience with such.
But then again, don’t we need more neighbourhood activists, not scientists and engineers :}).
Crazy question just crossed my mind, will my robotic bodyguard have to have a gun permit and be licensed to kill?
We will always need programmers and health care services. Robots replacing everything is a long way off.