Report: Machines to handle over half workplace tasks by 2025

AP ^ | April 17, 2018 | Jamey Keaten

[C19fan]

More than half of all workplace tasks will be carried out by machines by 2025, organizers of the Davos economic forum said in a report released Monday that highlights the speed with which the labor market will change in coming years.

The World Economic Forum estimates that machines will be responsible for 52 percent of the division of labor as share of hours within seven years, up from just 29 percent today. By 2022, the report says, roughly 75 million jobs worldwide will be lost, but that could be more than offset by the creation of 133 million new jobs.

[BitWielder1]

Salesman: This gadget will do half the work for you.
Customer: Great, I'll take two.

[pepsionice]

Just at McDonalds alone, I’ll predict that a quarter of all positions are automated within five years. If some idiot was thinking a life-long position with McDonalds....they are screwed.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Which is why the elites are convinced we need to keep importing unskilled third world labor . . .

[a fool in paradise]

And yet McDonalds used people in India to answer drive through orders rather than automating that

[rjsimmon]

Skynet is HERE!!!

[rjsimmon]

And yet McDonalds used people in India to answer drive through orders rather than automating that

I wonder if McDonald's in India use call centers in the US to take orders???

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Great Power Loom Riots, Part II coming up.

[Lazamataz]

By 2022, the report says, roughly 75 million jobs worldwide will be lost, but that could be more than offset by the creation of 133 million new jobs.

Doing what? Giving each other therapy because they don't have a job any more?

[ßuddaßudd]

can machines design, test and build integrated circuits yet?
µ Ω Θ ∞ ∙ ■ ○

[Nateman]

Total automation is only a matter of time. Robots have essentially been exploring space for us already.

[Truthoverpower]

Ok genius
Invent a robot to put in solar systems. My job
Climb a 24 foot to 40 foot ladder
Find rafters on roof
Put in feet rails and panels
Figure out what kind of electrical panel. Go to hardware store find parts
Run conduit and secure in attic
Yeah right !
They’ll never invent a robot that can even put wire in a pipe

[DugwayDuke]

Jobs won’t be lost. People will just be doing different things. Wealth will increase. After all, the economy didn’t crash when the steam engine was invented. Or, the automobile. Or, the PC....

[ConservativeWarrior]

On a road trip this past weekend I grabbed coffee at McDonald’s twice.

Both had kiosks, but I didn’t use either. You could see the smears from countless other customers.

At the second location, a worker cleaning the soda fountain saw me waiting in line and told me to use the kiosk. “Don’t be afraid, it’s easy to use.”

“I’m not afraid of anything but the germs on it” was my reply.

[itsahoot]

can machines design, test and build integrated circuits yet?

If they are not already, they soon will, count on it.

[grania]

It's a real problem. When EPCOT was built (1980s?) one of their futuristic and mostly all-wrong predictions got it correct about a world where 10% of the people can do 90% of the meaningful work. What they got wrong is that it was possible to have social planning to keep people productive and active. A large percentage of the population needs activity and responsibility to stay civilized. The Luddites were on to something, so were the Pharaohs with their make-work pyramid building projects.

[itsahoot]

They’ll never invent a robot that can even put wire in a pipe

Thou sayest.

[ClearCase_guy]

I believe that is “normalization bias”.

We are used to the idea that tech improvements lead to new and additional opportunities. We consider that to be the normal course of events.

But it is not inevitable. It does not always have to go that way.

I think we are moving away from the phase of civilization where low skilled people had productive work to do. That may be a problem.

[Buckeye McFrog]

There will be a political revolution before these numbers ever come to pass.

Socialist? Communist? Violent Luddites? Who knows.

All I know is that a large swath of the populace is not going to stand by and allow automation to throw them into poverty.

[DugwayDuke]

ClearCase_guy wrote: “I think we are moving away from the phase of civilization where low skilled people had productive work to do. That may be a problem.”

Perhaps, but that has always been the claim in the past. No real reason to believe ‘This time is different’. Actually, there is such a reason and that reason is to justify certain social re-distributive big government policies, ie, jobs for all, guaranteed income, etc, etc.