60 min on the east coast is now featuring our greatest problem "cyber-era" job replacement.

[CK_John]

Nurses, lawyers, pharmacy, warehousers and even surgeons are being replaced by robots, costing approx $3.40 per hour.

[NoOneMan]

1. Thats not near our greatest problem

[CK_John]

3. You are wrong, this problem will be with us for at least 50yrs. It will close at

least 1/2 public universities and public k-12 schools, wreck family stability and probably our form of representative government(think Detroit).

[NoOneMan]

15. Yeah, well climate change will be with us for thousands

And thats going to starve billions. But hey, we all got to have priorities I guess

[Heywood J]

22. It's a little hard to fault someone looking at the empty plate on their table

for not considering the millions around them.

[reformist2]

18. Freedom from work ought to be a good thing. It's our stupid work-based economic system that

is the problem!

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. kick

[Uncle Joe]

4. Who will build, repair and program the robots?

Thanks for the thread, CK_John.

[CK_John]

7. There are several countries that have more PH D's in comp sci or IT than us currently.

Education will become highly selective (mensa types only) if society doesn't fold completely before we work it all out.

[Skittles]

17. check those resumes VERY carefully

I work with many so-called degreed offshore folk who actually know less than the average American high school nerd

[Marrah_G]

11. Other robots, probably sooner then we expect

[BlueToTheBone]

5. Nurses? Yikes! n/t

[leftstreet]

6. Technology isn't the problem. Sharing the wealth is

We should all benefit from technology

[CK_John]

8. Robots are running hedge funds now, the wealthy should beware.

[reformist2]

19. Exactly. Imagine a world where robots did everything, and we only needed 1,000 people to run them.

What would everyone else do? Would Republicans still call the 99.99% of Americans out of work lazy???

Obviously that's an absurd extreme, but I think we're actually starting on our way down that road as we speak. It's a little hard to see, but the economy doesn't need us all to work anymore, and needs fewer of us with every passing year...

[JEFF9K]

9. Krug

Paul Krugman has suggested that the fast movement of technology could pose a problem for American workers.

[CK_John]

12. It should be obvious to all, but 60 min will help get it into the public sphere. Then

we can begin to find solutions like lower SS age to at least 50, a 4 day week, setup public community workshops for crafts and inventors, have public libraries start lending tools.

[Marrah_G]

10. I saw that...it was scary

[bhikkhu]

13. The problem has been with us for decades

as the most common job many years ago was agricultural work. After the depression, most of those jobs were replaced by machines.

There was a massive shift of people to the cities, where there was a variety of mill-work, office work and labor-intensive manufacturing. Most of those jobs were replaced by machines, automation and technology over the last four decades.

Off-shoring of labor was a big and well-publicized drain as well, but the advances in technology over the last few decades (by one estimate) have eliminated 10 jobs for every one that went overseas.

Change is definitely an continuing process. I'm not sure what I would do if I were a kid now, and I'm not sure what to advise my kids to do...but then they are more prone to go their own way anyway, and I just hope for the best. I'm a mechanic myself, which has been reliable and steady work. It is definitely hard to keep up with new things though - I'm currently studying to complete a new round of technical certifications to keep up to date.

[CK_John]

14. The buggy whip problem, its totally different. Productivity has out stripped the need for

at least 1/2 the population world wide. Its not local.

[bhikkhu]

16. The one resolution that comes to my mind is that people enjoy human interaction

...if the material needs of humanity are being adequately met by a small human labor force and a large amount of mechanization, then the problem becomes one of distribution. People, given the opportunity, will spend lots of time and money on services they don't need, but that they enjoy and that create jobs for other people.

If I had more money I'd go out to eat more often, participate more in sports, travel more and so forth, all activities not related to productivity, but to human interaction. That segment of the economy could easily grow, if there was a mechanism to fairly distribute the proceeds from the manufacture of the material good we use. And life would be more enjoyable.

[reformist2]

20. In a way, you're describing trickle down. It doesn't work. The rich just bid up real estate & art.

[bhikkhu]

21. Trickle down is just hoping that it will balance out on its own

I'd be all in favor of proactive tax policies, nationalizing selective industries, or really anything that was necessary to build and balance a healthy society. Just hoping it does it by itself isn't very realistic, looking at the scope and history of the problem.

Its certainly not our grandfather's economy any more, or one that most of the last generation of economists would recognize.

[Heywood J]

23. At what point can we outsource financiers and corporate officers?

They've already proven in the stock markets that finance can be accomplished by computer algorithms attached to bank accounts. A simple coin-flip algorithm would do a better job than many corporate officers these days and there would be an improved, 50% chance of ending up with the ethical outcome.