Automation and Job Loss

I read two related stories this morning regarding job loss and automation. Some restaurants are using ipad-like devices on tables for menu orders. The customer uses the ipad to view a menu, order food/drink, and then pay.

On the other end of the paycheck spectrum, Australian mining truck drivers who make up to $224k/year are being replaced with robots. Their huge pay had to play a huge roll in automation.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/04/robots-to-kill-australian-mining-gravy-train-where-drivers-earn-224000/?intcmp=latestnews

$224k a year!! Phuck me!! I need to move!!

I saw that yesterday. It won't take long to have that robot tech pay for itself when replacing those kind of pay scales. Itd do it as a summer job too if I could.

No offense to the dump truck driver but replacing them with robots would be pretty easy , its basically a static environment .

Consider;
Once the apex of manufacturing excellence was a hand-built Rolls Royce.
Today almost all cars are built to closer tolerances, by robots.
And they cost a bit less.

Frankly, I'm glad there are no more thirty-year careers installing windshields on a Chevrolet.

All of us have to adjust and find other ways to earn money. The trick is to stop looking backward.

shatto wrote:

All of us have to adjust and find other ways to earn money. The trick is to stop looking backward.

Main issue now is there are less new jobs being created than are being lost.
I have heard some ponder if we are ready for a fully automated future because there are estimates that there could be 50%+ unemployment along with it.

For sure this ain't your daddy's years of employment when you could look and take your pick of many careers or jobs. Them days are gone for good and the US is in dire need of tax revenue. We're lacking those stable 30 year careers. Today, one needs to re-invent themselves. Some say 5 or 6 times in a working career and each time can have the added cost of education, moving, burning through retirement/savings, and years of lower pay as you come up to speed.

If I had a choice, I'd prefer the good old days. The US future looks bleak for our next generations.

The "cheaper is better" walmart mentality has caught up with us.
For years top management has conditioned the US sheeple that low skill manufacturing needs to be done outside the US. People did not realize, and still don't I'm afraid, that those 2,000 textile mill production workers are only the tip of the iceberg. Along with those "unskilled" production workers were the "skilled" support trades, multi-levels of floor management and support engineers. That was only for the direct plant not counting all the support suppliers with their levels of people, then the delivery drivers etc.

Look at the heavy press program from the '50s.
We can not replace those presses with US versions because we do not have the capability anymore.

Quote :

Conventional wisdom would say that the industry went to less-developed nations, freeing American resources for higher-tech pursuits. In fact, the only companies today capable of producing Heavy Press-size equipment are in the backwaters known as Germany and Japan, with companies in Russia, Korea, and China rapidly catching up and the UK actively rebuilding its top firm, Sheffield Forgemasters, through cheap government loans. Just last year four Japanese companies joined forces to build a new 50,000-ton press for the aerospace and power industries, and while I was working on this piece China Erzhong, a nationalized conglomerate, announced that it will build an 80,000-ton press — the biggest ever — to support its nascent aerospace industry.

heavy press program

Arlington assembly plant for GM has just added a brand new 3 line press expansion(15+ presses) of which have been sourced from Korea.

Quote :

The equipment is coming to the U.S. from Korea, one of the few places in the world that makes it, according to Brad Hart, the stamping plant manager.

“They’re sourced overseas because that level of manufacturing is hard to find anymore in the United States,” he said.

Arlington press shipment

My facility alone had dozens of engineers on hand locally in the past. Now many, many parts are sourced from overseas. Instead of dozens of M.E.s we have a handful and a purchasing agent. We have less "unskilled" hourly but also many less engineers of all kinds.

Up to now the only area that hasn't been outsourced are financial institutions but even that will change since China has all the money.

Putting our soldiers out of a job. This stuff actually scares me because these people know what it can and will be used for if proofed effectuve.

http://mobile.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24427821

The Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics was mentioned in a key note speech this week by Andy McAfee from MTI. The Speech was on innovation, automation, autonomy advancements and the pace/rate. Andy believes we're at one of those plateaus right now and the next couple years we'll see a massive acceleration like we did after in the early 80's with the advent of the PC.

The theme around Atlashttp://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_Atlas.htmlin the speech was goals of doing things that we humans don't want to do. Example he gave. Get into a vehicle. Start the ignition, drive to a facility. Replace a water pump. Location Fukushima.

The speech also included economic indicators and a first time ever where over the last 20 years as innovation and productivity corporate profits have continued at a linear increase up, employment and median wages have diverged flat or downward, thus there's now a clear separation.

The speech continued with a 1/3 of it dedicated to autonomy. Machines making decisions. Google's autonomous car was referenced. Warehouses now automated, hospitals, home appliances, it's starting to occur everywhere.

In the Q&A I asked a question. At the rate of innovation and anatomy acceptance is there a risk to the human species that is foreseen, reference a Terminator scene. Andy didn't think so, as we would control the machines.

Looking past Andy's answer that didn't address the details.

Most of Boston Dynamics innovation has military applications, look no further than the millions it receives from DARPA (DoD) for development.

Just this week there was a successful test of a drone making it's own targeting and firing decisions. Within the last month a successful test of a pilot-less F16 take off and landing.

The idea being to remove or desensitize us from war. Make war easier. Case points, we no longer see battlefield footage from media as we did in Vietnam. We don't see the caskets come back home.

More and more military is being replaced by security contracting.

Replacing the human military solider with a military of Atlas , would make war way to easy for those who control Atlas or whatever autonomous military platform happens to be deployed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50154583n

Those that control the machines have the power and control. Military applications? Well you get the idea.

joemac wrote:

In the Q&A I asked a question.  At the rate of innovation and anatomy acceptance is there a risk to the human species that is foreseen, reference a Terminator scene.  Andy didn't think so, as we would control the machines.

Do we really think they would say otherwise?

IF we every create a true AI why do we think it won't compete with humans?
It will be able to create others like it and we use the same resources that it would need. Is it really that hard to comprehend?

I was hoping he would go down that path, more of a way to probe the morality and future behind the curtain that isn't spoken, but alas he provided the typical elite response.