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?

[GraceG]

I’m just glad I have a tech job....

for now...

[ClearCase_guy]

I keep saying it -- humans need to put some serious thought to a world in which human labor is largely unneeded. Sure, some professions will continue, some few humans will have meaningful work -- but the vast majority of people will essentially contribute nothing to society.

What is that going to look like?

[rightwingintelligentsia]

So, Flo from Progressive really does have cause to worry?

[SeekAndFind]

ROD SERLING PREDICTED THIS NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO...

[txrefugee]

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

[GraceG]

Just you wait, the Dims will be the first to lobby for “Sentient Robot Vopting Rights” and all the robots covered will be the ones built and programmed by State Supported Unions.....

[guido911]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brj2UkUPjCI#t=14

[GraceG]

I keep saying it -- humans need to put some serious thought to a world in which human labor is largely unneeded. Sure, some professions will continue, some few humans will have meaningful work -- but the vast majority of people will essentially contribute nothing to society.

What is that going to look like?

Maybe we can put all the "Takers" into the Matrix while the Makers abandon them by moving to the stars....

[SeekAndFind]

TWILIGHT ZONE: 1964 -- The Brain Center at Whipple's

[Billthedrill]

Robo-receptionist: "Good morning, Mr. Drill. Are you ready for your colonoscopy as mandated in Section 12,304 part 111b, subsection 5248c in the 0bamacare program?"

BtD: "Yeah, sure. So where's the Doc?"

Robo-receptionist: "That function is no longer carried out by human doctors, Mr. Drill, as delineated in Section 31,562, part 214j, subsection 9153h in the 0bamacare program. Now please drop yer britches and get in line."

BtD: "Uh, waidaminnud. That thing is an oil drill."

Robo-receptionist: "We naturally have had to repurpose technology now banned by the EPA. Do not be alarmed. This unit has a clean track record of success."

BtD: "At colonoscopies?"

Robo-receptionist: "At drilling for oil. Spread 'em."

[Darteaus94025]

Especially Oxford professors!

Record their lectures, and can them!

[SeekAndFind]

One of these people is really a robot... guess who...

[Uncle Miltie]

Those horrible tractors took almost all the farming jobs!

Ban Tractors!

[sickoflibs]

It is time to outlaw all Technology like in that movie Wizards.

[Stentor]

What is that going to look like?

I'm just going to look out my front window and I'll let you know.

[Buckeye McFrog]

What is that going to look like?

You will have irresistible demands for Government make-work projects to pay people for creating art and such. (the Nancy Pelolsi "Obamacare will free you to pursue your dream of becoming a street mime" paradigm). Of course with that much automated labor the cost of making anything we need may be driven so low it won't matter.

[556x45]

These proclamations are reminiscent of those made by my AI professor 40 some years ago. He was all lathered up about how AI would put us all out of work in a handful of years. It all seems grossly out of step w/ reality. Oh, wait, college and reality don’t really go together. I think these guys need to get real jobs and the press needs to be more discriminating on what they publish. Anyway, in the Idiocracy we’re slouched to who’s going to have the brains to run all this advanced tech?

[DannyTN]

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.

[DannyTN]

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.