Are any of you concerned about losing your job to automation or machine learning?

OMM 0000

Hi all

I've been reading a lot of scare stories about this stuff lately. For example, with trucks being automated, one of the main jobs for men with no college education will disappear. Another example is self driving cars - taxi driver jobs will disappear.

Have you put any thought into how your own job or industry could be affected?

Are there any things you can do to protect yourself?

Personally I work in IT and have been at this a long time (20+ years), so I'm probably OK, but I do worry about all the folks who probably will be affected, and how it will impact our society.

I don't believe truck drivers and taxi drivers can "learn to code".

Any thoughts?

bobbysands81

OMM 0000 wrote: »

Hi all

I've been reading a lot of scare stories about this stuff lately. For example, with trucks being automated, one of the main jobs for men with no college education will disappear. Another example is self driving cars - taxi driver jobs will disappear.

Have you put any thought into how your own job or industry could be affected?

Are there any things you can do to protect yourself?

Personally I work in IT and have been at this a long time (20+ years), so I'm probably OK, but I do worry about all the folks who probably will be affected, and how it will impact our society.

I don't believe truck drivers and taxi drivers can "learn to code".

Any thoughts?

Taxi drivers might be able to code... but self driving cars will render them obsolete.

Interestingly I’ve been at a few talks about automation over the last few years and the presenters keep saying that solicitors are one of the main jobs where automation will be able to take over a huge amount of what they do.

OMM 0000

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Interestingly I’ve been at a few talks about automation over the last few years and the presenters keep saying that solicitors are one of the main jobs where automation will be able to take over a huge amount of what they do.

It's already happening!

There are services like zegal.com which will automate a lot of the solicitor documents for you.

Tom Dunne

Automated trucks and cars work well on motorways where there are visual cues (e.g. signs, road markings) in conforming formats common across large areas such as the EU or the US. Take such vehicles into city streets or backroads and they can't cope. So I really think the threat to drivers is very overplayed for now. In terms of cognition, in particular visual and spatial, I heard a quote somewhere that essentially said we, as a species, have had millions if years to evolve and adapt to the 3D world. computers and robots have only had a few years in comparison.

The threat, for now, is in low-level, repetitive tasks that can be easily automated.

Jim2007

Taxi drivers and truck drivers will find work in either healthcare or the leisure industry. With an aging population care givers and leisure staff will be in demand, that plus a universal basic wage.

The White Wolf

I'm not worried about it and look forward to the redundancy package.

I'm teaching in Asia while my software business grows. I don't think either are at risk of automation.

The big risk for me is Google Education actually becoming good and being free. But I think they're they'll never get to the level I've gotten mine.

I did all my QFA'S was working my way up in the bank from call centre worker to branch loan officer, until I was told my role of loan officer was changing. If someone came in looking for a loan, I would have to direct them to the phones or website to apply.

I ended up taking the voluntary redundancy package.

beauf

I've switched industries and jobs many times in my career. Been in IT in many different roles for a long time. I expect the many issue will not be changing jobs. It will be ageism.

The problem with coding is even if everyone was able to code, and only a small % can. The industry only wants the top 20%. That top 20% don't consider the other 80% as useful. It gets more complex every year. So if you think coding is a way out, it isn't.

As the population ages we will have more healthcare and services work though.

Ohmeha

I'm in financial services and I'm worried about it and seeing it. The entry level/repetitive jobs that used to be taken on by school leavers and graduates are dwindling significantly due to improved IT, automation and robotics, basically the low-hanging fruit is under scope.

My role currently would be too costly and complex to automate, they haven't gone near it but I can see in 10 years time with developments in robotics and lowering of it's costs will likely see some aspect of my role automated, thankfully I don't plan to be still in the same job by then!

Our company tells us that robotics is to free up staff, create new roles and that we're not to fear it but then one of my colleagues gets a job in the robotics department and confirms internally that their long-term objective is to robotize all operational roles up to senior management

smurfjed

The two recent unfortunate B737 Max crashes have shown that my job is safe for years to come.

People won't climb in a plane without pilots.

Tom Dunne

As a self-described technology enthusiast and an educator, this obsession with coding is a dangerous thing. Not everybody is a coder, not everybody has an aptitude for it.

There are many, many things that people are good at and that are, even with massive leaps in computing power, impossible to automate. Artists, poets, musicians, carpenters, chefs, mechanics, plumbers, teachers (yes, teachers) and so on. The trick is to find what you are good at. Everybody has something they are good at.

And for those already in employment, moving yourself up the foodchain, away from those easily-automated jobs is important.

Lux23

Nope. My job is all about building relationships and communication.

Batgurl

Recommend reading The Fuzzy and the Techie.

It explains how those with humanities/arts backgrounds will be just as important in future as those from STEM backgrounds.

Self-driving cars can be programmed by a techie but still need input from behavioural psychologists, sociologists etc.

Really interesting perspective.

OMM 0000

Batgurl wrote: »

It explains how those with humanities/arts backgrounds will be just as important in future as those from STEM backgrounds.

I find that hard to believe...

No offence.

Most of those degrees are already considered "useless" for the real world.

Your examples (psychologists, sociologists) will always be needed. But gender studies, Irish folklore, drama, music, etc., aren't useful at all for 99.99% of jobs.

I should point out I do think these degrees have value (education has value in of itself); I'm disagreeing with your statement that arts/humanities will be considered just as important as STEM.

The White Wolf

Batgurl wrote: »

Recommend reading The Fuzzy and the Techie.

It explains how those with humanities/arts backgrounds will be just as important in future as those from STEM backgrounds.

Self-driving cars can be programmed by a techie but still need input from behavioural psychologists, sociologists etc.

Really interesting perspective.

I've seen it said in regard to carer roles but thing is.....not everyone is capable of working in such a role, just like not everyone is capable of working in finance.

So while I do believe automation is going to become a big part of businesses, I don't believe the spoof line about how it's going to be great for everyone and how they're going to be able to spend more time with their families.

The main motivation behind automation is simply this; to produce work cheaper and in a more reliable manner (i.e. robots don't call in sick or go on leave), and to cut out human error. They're not going to reshape society for the better in order to accommodate that.

OMM 0000

I hear arguments like "just tax these companies so the government can pay a universal basic income", but won't that just cause these companies to move to tax havens?

I think the solution is going to be more authoritarian governments.

Think Saudi Arabia. It's unemployment rate is around 13%. They keep these unemployed, hopeless men in check by having incredibly harsh policing.

So I can see a situation which goes like this:

1. Unemployment keeps rising, causing more social issues, more street crimes, more burglaries, etc.

2. Authoritarian politicians run for government, saying they will increase police budgets, implement three strike laws, have a zero tolerance on street crime, etc.

3. Authoritarian politicians get voted in. New laws are drafted which are incredibly harsh on offenders.

4. Private prisons start getting built...

5. We end up with a consistent 10% of the population in prison, another 20% living just above the poverty line, a tiny group of super rich, a small middle class, and a large working class.

Something like that.

I feel this is much more likely than "truck drivers will become programmers" or "truck drivers will do a new job we haven't thought of yet".

So if my super pessimistic prediction comes true, you'd probably be better off living in a society which is low violence (e.g. Japan) than a society full of mad c*nts (e.g. Ireland).

Ultimate Seduction

I'll be long dead when robots learn to do my job so couldn't really care. I also think it'll be along time before automated trucks become a majority in Ireland.

smurfjed

Think Saudi Arabia. It's unemployment rate is around 13%. They keep these unemployed, hopeless men in check by having incredibly harsh policing.

Where on earth are you getting your ideas from? Haven't you heard of 2030?

OMM 0000

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

I'll be long dead when robots learn to do my job so couldn't really care. I also think it'll be along time before automated trucks become a majority in Ireland.

But if robots discover how to do other people's jobs, it will effect you too...

OMM 0000

smurfjed wrote: »

Where on earth are you getting your ideas from? Haven't you heard of 2030?

The average person hasn't heard of Saudi Arabia's 2030 vision.

Your comment does not in any way dispute what I've said.

Batgurl

OMM 0000 wrote: »

I find that hard to believe...

No offence.

Most of those degrees are already considered "useless" for the real world.

Your examples (psychologists, sociologists) will always be needed. But gender studies, Irish folklore, drama, music, etc., aren't useful at all for 99.99% of jobs.

I should point out I do think these degrees have value (education has value in of itself); I'm disagreeing with your statement that arts/humanities will be considered just as important as STEM.

You didn’t offend me; it was the opinion of the book. It made a lot of sense though. Maybe don’t knock something until you’ve tried it.

Otherwise you sound like one of those cranky old men who think they are always right, even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary...

No offence

OMM 0000

Batgurl wrote: »

You didn’t offend me; it was the opinion of the book. It made a lot of sense though. Maybe don’t knock something until you’ve tried it.

Otherwise you sound like one of those cranky old men who think they are always right, even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary...

No offence

But we already have the evidence today that arts/humanities aren't as important as STEM.

As the world becomes more technical and advanced, I cannot see it getting any better for the arts/humanities folk.

Obviously I did offend you...

smurfjed

So where are you getting the idea that Saudi men are hopeless ? Do you interact with many of them on a professional level ?

What about Saudi women, do you also consider them useless ?

OMM 0000

smurfjed wrote: »

So where are you getting the idea that Saudi men are hopeless ? Do you interact with many of them on a professional level ?

What about Saudi women, do you also consider them useless ?

I never said Saudi men are hopeless.

Why would I think Saudi women are useless?

I never understand why people do this - changing what you wrote so you have to defend something you never said.

Let's nip this in the bud right now -

When a man is unemployed, has no real work prospects, when he feels he's being left behind by society, he becomes hopeless about his future.

Obviously this would apply to women too, but women tend not to cause as much chaos when they feel they have no future. Our prisons prove this.

Nermal

Batgurl wrote: »

Self-driving cars can be programmed by a techie but still need input from behavioural psychologists, sociologists etc.

They just need examples of real-world data to copy. Not input from sociologists.

I'm not concerned at all, the only advances in my lifetime have been in vision and translation. We're no closer to a general purpose AI than we ever have been.

OMM 0000

Nermal wrote: »

I'm not concerned at all, the only advances in my lifetime have been in vision and translation. We're no closer to a general purpose AI than we ever have been.

I don't really agree with this.

My day to day job is machine learning stuff, and I've seen a lot of advances over the past 20 years.

The biggest would be its accessibility. As you probably know, a lot of ML tasks are now "simple". Classifiers, NLP, etc.

There have been lots of improvements in speech recognition.

Lots of work is going in to combining millions of neural networks to imitate certain types of intelligence. (Obviously it's not real intelligence).

I recently helped a company get rid of its research team by using crawling + NLP.

I'm involved in another project which removes planners from branding.

Another project I'm about to start is to remove the creative team from real estate projects.

I'm worried about this stuff.

_Brian

No, by job is highly irregular, social aspects dealing with isolated adults often having poor literacy skills, spend allot of time driving rural roads visiting and assessing sites for work.

Balanadan

I've started making robot noises at work so my job is safe. Beep boop boop beep.

beauf

Without fail anytime I've automated something or made it super efficient some management decision comes in and changes the process for no good reason and breaks everything.
Then goes on to re-learn all the same lessons just a lot slower. As they are generally more stubborn people.

smurfjed

When a man is unemployed, has no real work prospects, when he feels he's being left behind by society, he becomes hopeless about his future.[\i]

Ok I’m still curious about your generalisation of Saudi men ?

If you talked about war torn Syria or Iraq it might be different, but you are using a 13% unemployment rate to say that they don’t have a future, why ?

OMM 0000

smurfjed wrote: »

When a man is unemployed, has no real work prospects, when he feels he's being left behind by society, he becomes hopeless about his future.[\i]

Ok I’m still curious about your generalisation of Saudi men ?

If you talked about war torn Syria or Iraq it might be different, but you are using a 13% unemployment rate to say that they don’t have a future, why ?

I didn't generalise all Saudi men. Stop pretending I did that.

I picked Saudi Arabia because it has a high unemployment rate and what could be considered a police state.

I could have picked another similar country.

For the last time I am not saying all Saudi men are hopeless and have no future.

Standman

Recently read an interesting book related to this topic, Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark. It takes an in-depth look at the current state and possible futures of AI.

There are a few parts that addressed some of the worries I had about this very issue, I'll post them below.

As regards what to look for in a career, this excerpt from the book is relevant:

Life 3.0 wrote:

• Does it require interacting with people and using social intelligence?
• Does it involve creativity and coming up with clever solutions?
• Does it require working in an unpredictable environment?
The more of these questions you can answer with a “yes”, the better your career choice is likely to be. This means that relatively safe bets include becoming a teacher, nurse, doctor, dentist, scientist, entrepreneur, programmer, engineer, lawyer, social worker, clergy member, artist, hairdresser or massage therapist.

How AI progresses and how it currently matches up to human abilities:

Life 3.0 wrote:

Computers are universal machines, their potential extends uniformly over a boundless expanse of tasks. Human potentials, on the other hand, are strong in areas long important for survival, but weak in things far removed.

Imagine a “landscape of human competence,” having lowlands with labels like “arithmetic” and “rote memorization,” foothills like “theorem proving” and “chess playing,” and high mountain peaks labeled “locomotion,” “hand-eye coordination” and “social interaction.”

Advancing computer performance is like water slowly flooding the landscape. A half century ago it began to drown the lowlands, driving out human calculators and record clerks, but leaving most of us dry.

Now the flood has reached the foothills, and our outposts there are contemplating retreat. We feel safe on our peaks, but, at the present rate, those too will be submerged within another half century. I propose that we build Arks as that day nears, and adopt a seafaring life!

Lastly, some AI-related myths addressed:

OMM 0000

OMM 0000 wrote: »

I didn't generalise all Saudi men. Stop pretending I did that.

I picked Saudi Arabia because it has a high unemployment rate and what could be considered a police state.

I could have picked another similar country.

For the last time I am not saying all Saudi men are hopeless and have no future.

That actually brings up an interesting point about retraining being very complex, there is high(ish) unemployment in Saudi Arabia and a huge amount of foreign workers so logic would dictate that the unemployed Saudi's should be trained to do the work that the foreign worker do but that is no happening.

Personally, think society will adjust after a period of transition.

Ethereal Cereal

I never really understood the fear and demonisation of automation. Progress and innovation can not be halted or slowed, it has to be accepted. Anything attempt to curtail innovation is dystopian.

It does however require strict government regulation to prevent corporations using it as a cash cow without regard to the persons they are taking out of work. Someone mentioned taxes above, corporations absolutely need to be taxed allot more, allowing for a universal basic wage and other national resources. Our current government is extremely lax in this are. Their thinking is to make money for the upper few for a while and let subsequent government worry about consequences.

If a job is repetitive and menial enough to be done by a machine, maybe the person that is currently doing that job would be happier doing something else. I know my own father worked 20 years on a production line in an electronics factory to put food on our table. He did not enjoy it, but he had no personal time to retrain or study because he was working 10 hour shifts daily. Since retiring he completed an arts degree and returned to his music he played when he was younger.

Ethereal Cereal

And Now This...

nthclare

Supposedly automation was an Idea for us to have less hours and gain some free time to enjoy our humanity, ironically that hasn't worked out to our advantage.

I work in forestry and horticulture and now there's machines in South America which can plough down acers of tree's in a few hours, absolutely destroys the eco system.

Toppling village's and ruining people's lives.

There's something dark about all this automation, working as an artisan not far from the sea in a two bed insulated house can seem very attractive to me for sure.

The choice is there, but I'm sure that'll be railroaded too

Tell me how

OMM 0000 wrote: »

I find that hard to believe...

No offence.

Most of those degrees are already considered "useless" for the real world.

Your examples (psychologists, sociologists) will always be needed. But gender studies, Irish folklore, drama, music, etc., aren't useful at all for 99.99% of jobs.

I should point out I do think these degrees have value (education has value in of itself); I'm disagreeing with your statement that arts/humanities will be considered just as important as STEM.

I'm not so sure. I think with the advance of Automation and the influence which that will have on the human race, we could see some roles developing which are purely to provide a need people/society has for human contact.

Automation is advancing at a fairly rapid pace (in the greater scheme of things) and it is going to continue to have an evolutionary impact on the human race. I don't think it is good for society that the world is moving towards people having less and less interaction with each other, but even if I am right, that doesn't mean that it won't continue to happen.