Humans Need Not Apply (automation is taking over)

[joshcryer]

We're going to need a living wage by 2030 or so. Keynes predicted it.

[merrily]

1. I don't always have time, but I do what I can about that on a daily basis.

Need customer service? Yes, I will fight that automated phone system and hold for a human, no matter how many hoops I have to jump through first. No matter how easy my bank makes it to use the automated system. No matter how hard the automated system makes it to get to a human. When the automated system tells me how smart it is and will understand me if I say what I need, I will simply cough into the phone or, if I feel like it, say the most complicated thing I can. Or I will simple repeat that I want to speak to a human representative.

As many times as it takes for the automated system to stop saying "I didn't get that. Let's try that again."

Same thing about ordering online. I make my choices online, then pick up a phone or request a call from customer service.

Maybe the human rep is picking up the phone in Malaysia, but I can't hep that. And, at that, a Malaysian human has more mouths to feed than does a computer.

Maybe it isn't much, but if I can humanly spend a few extra minutes a week making work for a human, I will.



Not long ago, I showed up at a hospital for a physical therapy appointment (broke my damn humerus and it wasn't funny). Two people were right outside the door to the PT area, teaching patients how to check in for PT on a computer. I gave the computer the stink eye and asked, "Is that computer a union member?" They looked down at the carpet, said nothing more, and I walked I past the computer to a nice woman at the reception desk.

BTW, I guess people recovering from things like broken bones and strokes didn't do well checking in for physical therapy standing in front of a computer. It's not there anymore.


I also always tell the human that I prefer speaking to a human. A few years back, they would patiently explain to me that the computers were only there to help them and me. More recently, though, they thank me.

[joshcryer]

2. They thank you for good reason.

They likely have to endure higher and higher upselling type of things, quotas, whatever. Being on the phone with someone who recognizes them as a person, that probably lightens the stress of the work day.

But the video isn't wrong and we're going to have to seriously address this issue. Corporations are going to be taking all the profits and only very highly trained specialists will be able to get jobs. The video points out that automated cars alone make up 70 million of the global workforce. Sure some developing country isn't going to have automated cars, but the US represents some 3 million of that. 3 million people out of a job, most of whom can't get a more specialized job? That's a travesty to the labor force.

The technological trajectory is one way and it's very damning to the global workforce. McDonalds is already quite automated. It's on the verge of going fully automated (it has said that if there is a minimum wage increase it will do so). That's many million people out of a job, in a very short period of time.

And your dollar menu turns into a 50 cent menu and the people don't give a shit.

[merrily]

3. They get it now. They didn't get it a few years ago, when I first started telling them

that I wanted to speak to people who needed jobs more than a computer did. But, they get it now.

I had a client who used to manufacture stuff for companies like GE. He thought he was very smart, making sure he owned whatever gizmo he developed to do the manufacturing he needed. And, truth to tell he was smart. Taught me a lot.

He ended up buying a diner, where he cooked I lost touch with him after that. Hope he did okay.

Point is, the only secure job now seems to be (a) one that cannot be offshored and (b) cannot be done by a robot or computer. Right now making omlets to order fits that description. Will a robot do that in a couple of years, though?

Does anyone care, even enough to spend a few more minutes on the phone transferring money from one account to another?

Dunno. Not many in the 10%, though. I am pretty sure of that.

""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[joshcryer]

4. Yes, robots will be making omelets, in maybe, 5-10 years.

They will be made to absolute order and if you complain about the quality the robots will make it to perfection the next time.

Did you watch the video? Highly trained specialists will only have a job in the future. Even creative minds will be pressed. It's quite difficult to reconcile and I think that corporations will need to be reigned in and taxed heavily so we can have a living wage.

[merrily]

5. maybe.

It's quite difficult to reconcile and I think that corporations will need to be reigned in and taxed heavily so we can have a living wage.

Maybe not. Hence my quote from Dickens.

[merrily]

7. PS Working people looking to Washington for solutions has not been working too well

since the 1960s.

Even if they manage to raise the minimum wage, inflation catches up. No real increase in earning power since the 1970s. And that money comes out of the pocket of employers, anyway, not the national treasury. And provides additional excuses for corporate welfare from government and offshoring by the private sector. And additional excuses to raise prices on consumers. So, out of all our pockets in the end.

But unlike solutions based on a fair tax system, price increases hurt poor people most.

Some in Congress calls corporations who offshore "refugees" and the Supreme Court says corporations have a right to religious freedom.

Expecting great solutions for working people from Washington doesn't seem to work these days, if ever it did. It's all about the investor class now.

[yuiyoshida]

6. Now that..

[ffr]

8. Micro view

Macro view says that humans and/or robots need the Industrial Revolution's cheap energy to continue forward. Oh yeah, peak oil production has peaked and all the overpopulated human pollution is catching up to us. Building more polluting cars/trucks/trains/shipping vessels, whether driven by a computer or a human is ridiculously shortsighted.

It's all unsustainable.

Sure, robots may be able to build their own power facilities using solar or wind, but humans require fresh water to survive and we're consuming that, not to mention the consumption of about every other non-renewable natural resource on Earth, at unsustainable rates while expanding our unabated population, which only accelerates the consumption of water and those natural resources.

Something has to give.