Close of half of all Jobs could be Automated By 2034, And 'No Government Is Prepared'

I'm no economist, but I imagine this all hinges on being able to meet the energy demands of the technology and that it has to be cheaper than the corresponding labour cost.
We could replace taxi drivers (fingers crossed) with automated cars, but at a huge initial investment in the technology.

To me this seems to be targeting the "middle men" in the economy.

Someone once said that people over estimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate in the long term. Not sure if that was Arthur C Clarke or someone else (not bothered to google it).

Climate change is going to bring about a mass migration of people in the next 50-100 years. Imagine all of Africa moving North or South away from the equator zones and the corresponding impact on countries less drastically effected by rising temperatures.

Food production is going to be a huge issue in the future, as is energy production, especially if they both compete for the same land areas much like bio-fuel is threatening today.

If they get nuclear fusion working then a lot of energy can be devoted to desalinating water for drought areas and 24-7 greenhouses for food production and maybe some large scale machines to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere.

But I'm just letting my imagination run away there a little.

But I do see the manufacturer to consumer link being a lot closer.
Someone creates a 3D CAD drawing of a product, and it gets printed on a 3D printer at the consumers home, or the nearest 3D printer shop for collection.
So products become intellectual products more than physical products.

riclad wrote: »

I think it,ll be a long time before i go to a supermarket ,and there,ll be robots stacking shelves or counting up my grocerys.

You don't get it, there won't be a supermarket store to visit.

At the moment the likes of Tesco have online shopping.
You select your groceries online and they have dedicated picking teams to collect your order from the shelves, and drivers to deliver it.

Now imagine that there's no physical shop at all, a sort of Argos for groceries, only they get delivered to your door.
That's the thing that people underestimate.

I'm 41 and remember when we didn't have a phone in our house.

Imagine when 3d printing and 3d tailoring take over.
When you don't go to some store for clothes because you have scanned in the 3D contours of your body and shops can manufacture your clothes perfectly for you.

No more physical shops at all and you end up with localised 3D printing and 3D tailoring centres which deliver direct.

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Unless you are a shopper who never changes his choices shopping online is more difficult for groceries than going to a shop. ( it also exists already). And would involve vast refrigerated warehouses. Not going to happen.

Every supermarket already has these "vast refrigerated warehouses" you speak of.

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

And 3D printing is just plastics and moulds and stuff. We've had that for centuries.

Yes, and mass produced.
So it involves a large setup cost ( making injection moulds etc ), then low cost to make them in bulk.
But the future is customized models, being able to run small batch runs of custom designs so easily, with a small setup cost and higher cost to make them in bulk.

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Yeah. I know Tesco do this but for many companies the delivery window is from half to a whole working day, but picking a time would be more useful.

Some pick your order and you collect it in your own time.

But the point is that if enough people regularly do grocery shopping online there could be an online-only shop in the future, saving on costly supermarket buildings, insurance, shoplifting, car parks, staff etc.
Simple menial jobs can be moved to a more high tech environment of online ordering and delivery.

One of the classic jobs I predict will go is that of a librarian.
If books become digitized there's no need for buildings full of paperbacks.