Oxford Professors: Robots And Computers Could Take Half Our Jobs Within The Next 20 Years

TEC ^ | 09/30/2013 | Michael Snyder

[SeekAndFind]

What are human workers going to do when super-intelligent robots and computers are better than us at doing everything? That is one of the questions that a new study by Dr. Carl Frey and Dr. Michael Osborne of Oxford University sought to address, and what they concluded was that 47 percent of all U.S. jobs could be automated within the next 20 years. Considering the fact that the percentage of the U.S. population that is employed is already far lower than it was a decade ago, it is frightening to think that tens of millions more jobs could disappear due to technological advances over the next couple of decades. I have written extensively about how we are already losing millions of jobs to super cheap labor on the other side of the globe. What are middle class families going to do as technology also takes away huge numbers of our jobs at an ever increasing pace? We live during a period of history when knowledge is increasing an an exponential rate. In the past, when human workers were displaced by technology it also created new kinds of jobs that the world had never seen before. But what happens when the day arrives when computers and robots can do almost everything more cheaply and more efficiently than humans can?

[The_Media_never_lie]

Nothing to get hung about....
It doesn’t matter much to me (baby boomer)

[freedumb2003]

>>I’m just glad I have a tech job....

for now...<<

Most coding/development/programming jobs have been sent offshore — they are merely mechanical.

When I finally finish the program that can replace me, I will just run it with an avatar that looks like me and use the ADA to get 100% telecommute status.

[Argus]

All them cornfields and ballet in the evening.

[Regulator]

What are human workers going to do when super-intelligent robots and computers are better than us at doing everything?

Use the robots to do far far more with less and less, thus lowering costs and making a far higher standard of living available to all.

Modern life in the devloped world: smart phones EVERYWHERE, tablets/laptops/desktops EVERYWHERE, the internet/wi-fi EVERYWHERE, cars that are mobile technology centers, airplanes that fly themselves with hundreds of people at near transonic mach numbers, tv's that get thousands of channels from geosynchronous satellites, food produced by one bored farmer driving a climate controlled automated harvesting machine...goes on and on endlessly.

What are people going to do? Build and run the machines that create the things they need.

Or didn't know they needed.

Just like now.

[riverdawg]

Computers should replace university professors first. They could certainly be programmed to spew the Leftist line just as 95% of professors do.”
“Actually I think that's true of most education. From grade school through college.

Get the best instructors, on tape. Then computerize it with quizzes and progress indicators.

There is absolutely no reason we need hundreds of thousands of math instructors, when computers could teach better, cleaner, consistently at the rate of the student, as opposed to the rate of the slowest student.”

The big fad in the early 1960s in math education was self-paced learning. My 8th grade algebra teacher gave us a workbook and told us to work the problems at our own pace. Most of us spent the class time daydreaming or passing notes back and forth. It took me several years of “hard knocks” in future conventional math classes to make up for that one disastrous class.

[Heartlander2]

Well, I suppose there will not be much buying! Only our labor produces the wealth that is needed to make purchases. And if we find a way around this, then there is always “going Galt.” Why? Because there is much satisfaction in a job well done and enjoying the fruit of our labors, and if that is taken away from us, then an important part of living has been taken away from us.

[GraceG]

When I finally finish the program that can replace me, I will just run it with an avatar that looks like me and use the ADA to get 100% telecommute status.

I plan to merge with a machine untill I am 100% machine then i will duplicate myself to the point where I can outnumber the Dems 2:1 and work to elect decent people...

[DannyTN]

"The big fad in the early 1960s in math education was self-paced learning. My 8th grade algebra teacher gave us a workbook and told us to work the problems at our own pace. Most of us spent the class time daydreaming or passing notes back and forth. It took me several years of “hard knocks” in future conventional math classes to make up for that one disastrous class."

Your instructor didn't control it. In the 6th grade, our teacher took me and a friend and said, y'all are bored in the normal class, so sit here at this table and work these problems and as long as y'all work, you don't have to be part of the regular class. We worked through most of high school algebra and geometry in the 6th grade.

It was so successful, that by the end of the school year, he had 20 students working problems at their own pace.

[freedumb2003]

>>I plan to merge with a machine untill I am 100% machine then i will duplicate myself to the point where I can outnumber the Dems 2:1 and work to elect decent people...<<

The singularity meets the multiplier...

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I think the professors should be far more concerned with advanced technologies taking *their* jobs.

Already, MIT has put its entire curriculum online. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the first two years of college change only very slowly over time, and can be almost generic to accomplish the same instruction.

Only in the upper divisions do the professors really matter, and then, as individuals, tailor making their instruction, if they are good, so that their students have knowledge unique to that professor’s “school of thought”, on that particular subject.

[DannyTN]

I like your plan.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Computers should replace university professors first. They could certainly be programmed to spew the Leftist line just as 95% of professors do.”

Actually I think that's true of most education. From grade school through college.

Get the best instructors, on tape. Then computerize it with quizzes and progress indicators.

There is absolutely no reason we need hundreds of thousands of math instructors, when computers could teach better, cleaner, consistently at the rate of the student, as opposed to the rate of the slowest student.

The big fad in the early 1960s in math education was self-paced learning. My 8th grade algebra teacher gave us a workbook and told us to work the problems at our own pace. Most of us spent the class time daydreaming or passing notes back and forth. It took me several years of “hard knocks” in future conventional math classes to make up for that one disastrous class.

The future is now:

khanacademy.org

[TexasFreeper2009]

like Detroit ?

[DannyTN]

Khanacademy is good.
Udacity.com is also good.
I’m halfway through udacity’s intro to Physics. And I just stated about a week ago.

[DannyTN]

Khanacademy is good.
Udacity.com is also good.
I’m halfway through udacity’s intro to Physics. And I just stated about a week ago.

[riverdawg]

I spent a few minutes at the Khan Academy site with some topics I know well and have taught at the college level. The videos were not very well done at all. If this is the future of instruction, I am glad that I went to college and a grad-school program in the “old days” where I experienced excellent instruction by clear, inspiring faculty.

[dragnet2]

All the robots will be manufactured in Red China and Mexico..