47% of today’s jobs could be automated in the next two decades

[phantom power]

Note that while this trend is barreling towards us, we are currently dismantling public primary education, and higher education is becoming unaffordable. And we are also de-funding science and technology investment. So the best hope for adapting, that politicians and pundits love to cite -- education and STEM -- is actually being made unavailable to the generations that will most need it.

... The prosperity unleashed by the digital revolution has gone overwhelmingly to the owners of capital and the highest-skilled workers. Over the past three decades, labour’s share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%. Meanwhile, the share of income going to the top 1% in America has risen from around 9% in the 1970s to 22% today. Unemployment is at alarming levels in much of the rich world, and not just for cyclical reasons. In 2000, 65% of working-age Americans were in work; since then the proportion has fallen, during good years as well as bad, to the current level of 59%.

Worse, it seems likely that this wave of technological disruption to the job market has only just started. From driverless cars to clever household gadgets (see article), innovations that already exist could destroy swathes of jobs that have hitherto been untouched. The public sector is one obvious target: it has proved singularly resistant to tech-driven reinvention. But the step change in what computers can do will have a powerful effect on middle-class jobs in the private sector too.

Until now the jobs most vulnerable to machines were those that involved routine, repetitive tasks. But thanks to the exponential rise in processing power and the ubiquity of digitised information (“big data”), computers are increasingly able to perform complicated tasks more cheaply and effectively than people. Clever industrial robots can quickly “learn” a set of human actions. Services may be even more vulnerable. Computers can already detect intruders in a closed-circuit camera picture more reliably than a human can. By comparing reams of financial or biometric data, they can often diagnose fraud or illness more accurately than any number of accountants or doctors. One recent study by academics at Oxford University suggests that 47% of today’s jobs could be automated in the next two decades.

At the same time, the digital revolution is transforming the process of innovation itself, as our special report explains. Thanks to off-the-shelf code from the internet and platforms that host services (such as Amazon’s cloud computing), provide distribution (Apple’s app store) and offer marketing (Facebook), the number of digital startups has exploded. Just as computer-games designers invented a product that humanity never knew it needed but now cannot do without, so these firms will no doubt dream up new goods and services to employ millions. But for now they are singularly light on workers. When Instagram, a popular photo-sharing site, was sold to Facebook for about $1 billion in 2012, it had 30m customers and employed 13 people. Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy a few months earlier, employed 145,000 people in its heyday.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594298-effect-todays-technology-tomorrows-jobs-will-be-immenseand-no-country-ready

[leftyladyfrommo]

1. I just read that, too.

pretty scary stuff. But you can see it all around. Everything is getting more and more mechanized. It's cheaper than hireing real people.

I'm just not sure what will happen to all the people who are left out.

[yeoman6987]

3. McDonald's

That is why these folks need to get 15 dollars an hour today because they already are trying to be "innovative" in having robots make the hamburger and other items. Also they are going to have self ordering stations so the cashiers won't be needed. It is scary. We need to ensure that people are taken care of now so that they can save some money for the future and today's minimum wage won't allow that.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. We can't all work at McDonalds.

I guess we could build bridges to no where.

[Kelvin Mace]

30. Actually,

we could repair/replace the 350,000 bridges in dire need of maintenance now. That would keep us busy for a while. There are tens of thousands of schools to fix, public facilities to clean up, etc.

Hell, the 100+ year old water mains in NYC could keep a small army of people employed for 20 years.

It is called "infrastructure", and we ignore it at our peril.

[jmowreader]

37. Don't fall into the Palin trap

The "bridge to nowhere" was actually a bridge to their airport. And she was all for it until the feds noticed Alaska has oil money and asked for cost-sharing.

Yes, of course there are only fifty families out there now...you really want to pay five bucks for a ferry ride to pick up a loaf of bread? If the bridge was built then families would flock out there.

[CFLDem]

6. I automated hamburgers is kind of cool.

It's just chaotic now because we're at the dawn of a new era of civilization. But it'll all shake out over the next few decades.

I'm not overly worried. Why stress over the inevitable?

[phantom power]

9. I think the point is, "the next few decades" is the entire working lifetime for 1-2 generations.

So, it might be prudent to at least pretend like we need a plan for those people. Because that's a lot of economic disruption and human misery. Like the old saying goes, in the long run, we're all dead.

[TheKentuckian]

13. No shit.

[CFLDem]

17. We should do a work corp like during the depression.

But I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

They'll probably take care of the surplus population the way they always have: send em' to war.

[phantom power]

22. I agree, we should

Not sure if it will happen, since our current political landscape is so dominated by conservatism that not even Democratic politicians seem to be interested.

Part of the thesis of the OP is that in a few decades we may not need humans to do things like rebuild bridges, or repair sewers. But we aren't there yet. So yes, a new CCC is long overdue.

[bettyellen]

16. You automated? I can believe that, LOL!

[phantom power]

5. You can see what's happening all around us

These people are being told to basically fuck off and die.

"It's your fault. Go get 'training.' Work harder. Love it or leave it." Training for what, exactly, is rarely mentioned. Because there are fewer and fewer open jobs for any kind of skill.

Supposedly, we're all expected to join the information economy, which I guess means we will all write content for each other on the internet. We'll all be rich!

[hrmjustin]

14. Slow day at the library?

[MissMillie]

2. Interesting....

Didn't we see that figure (47%) somewhere else before?

[jsr]

7. Don't look for funeral jobs. Funeral homes can also be automated

to resemble fish processing plants.

[greatauntoftriplets]

10. Really?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/us-lost-more-than-170000-small-businesses-2008-2010_n_1702358.html

Entrepreneurship plunged during the recession. The number of self-employed Americans fell 4 percent to 9.8 million between November 2007 and June 2009, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Twelve percent more businesses shut down in 2009 than in 2007.

[phantom power]

11. David? David Brooks, is that you?

[jmowreader]

15. Comparing Instagram to Kodak is stupid in the extreme

Let's be real: exactly how many people does it take to run a server farm? You could argue that thirteen people was overkill; you need eight people to run the server farm - two per shift and two on break - a programmer who could also be one of the server farm people, a manager and a secretary, and outsource everything else.

In Kodak's heyday, most of those 145,000 employees made things that had nothing to do with photography: until 1994 Kodak was the biggest chemical company in the United States. Did you know that during World War II, Kodak was America's largest producer of high explosives? Or that they made enriched uranium for our nuclear weapons program? Or worse, they were America's biggest maker of the fiber in cigarette filters? And one of the biggest reasons Kodak is in such trouble now, is that in 1994 they spun off Eastman Chemical. The "core strengths" fad of the 1980s and 90s, where companies "focused" on whatever it said they did on the sign and got rid of all the other divisions, has screwed a lot of firms that did it because in many cases those ancillary businesses were carrying the company. General Motors should still be making locomotives, Kodak should still be making chemical intermediates...should I go on? Add in that Kodak has warehousing and distribution operations that a pure e-play doesn't need.

[bettyellen]

18. not really- they had an almost monopoly on sales/ service of consumer photography

and that is a business that just died because of tech. That is the analogy about automation.

[phantom power]

19. that's exactly their point...

The supposed narrative is that we're all going to join the information economy. Well, the information economy doesn't necessarily generate a lot of jobs. Because you can run a server farm with a handful of people.

And the other point they're making is, even if you *do* create a new meat-space industry that (in the past) would have employed 100,000 people, well now it won't generate that many jobs because more of them are automatable, and we are crossing a threshold where what we used to consider non-automatable jobs is going to suddenly *be* automatable, so the opportunities in meat-space industry is going to drop sharply.

So... if physical jobs are going into further decline, and knowledge-worker jobs are also going to go into further decline, and IT jobs are going to go into decline, we have some serious thinking to do about how people are going to occupy themselves, and make a living, or what it even means to make a living.

[hunter]

20. This could be a good thing if we skimmed the scum off the top of our economy.

Imagine shorter work weeks, longer vacations, earlier retirements, pleasant workplaces, universal free healthcare, and generous welfare, disability, and unemployment benefits.

We could have all that, but the uber-wealthy and their heirs actually believe they created that money and it's their's to play with as they please.

Fuck them.

Money is created by the people and their labor. It belongs to us. If money is not being used in ways that improve the lot of all of us, we are obligated to take it back.

Taxes ought to be progressive and high enough that nobody is hungry, nobody lacks safe comfortable shelter, nobody is illiterate, and nobody lacks appropriate medical care. Especially taxes ought to be progressive and high enough that no corporation or individual can buy the political process.

[phantom power]

21. I agree...

Of course, if our political meme-scape continues to be dominated by conservative ideology, it's more likely we'll do the other thing: develop a permanent unemployed underclass living in poverty and misery.

[bklyncowgirl]

25. This is what utopian futurists used to predict when I was young.

Why not a shorter work week?

Why not more time for people to enjoy themselves and explore their dreams?

Why not a strong safety net that insures so that people know that they will not end up on the streets if something happens to their jobs.

Think about it. Someone who's working the traditional 40 hour week (or more if they're in management and are not subject to the labor laws or are stringing part time jobs together in order to make ends meet) would have more energy to do things that not only are enjoyable but which in the long run stimulate the economy, perhaps even create the next great technological advance.

This would take a great mind shift. Perhaps we need more creative people describing such a future in literature film and music in order to help people see that they can reach for a future that is not a choice between religio-corporate fascism and a communist dystopia.

[NBachers]

32. If I work fewer hours, I get paid less. I want more overtime, not less straight-time.

I guess I just haven't mind-shifted yet.

[Fumesucker]

23. Frankly I think that's too optimistic, there are going to be far more jobs eliminated than that n/t

[HughBeaumont]

24. I'm interested to see how consumer-driven Capitalism continues . . .

. . . . when the USA has millions and millions of people with no ability to consume due to no excess income/no wage.

[bklyncowgirl]

26. They plan to sell to elites in China and India.

Well not just elites--everyone wants cell phones, cars and they are starting to be in a position to buy them. They have a worldwide marketplace. Frankly, they don't need us any more.

[The2ndWheel]

31. It doesn't have to be consumer driven

It's been consumer driven only because it had to be. If all the products get made, with few people, or no people, doing the work, you're not needed to buy the things that have created the jobs in the past.

[HughBeaumont]

33. I told you this once before and I'll tell you once again . . . .

The notion that Laissez-fail can succeed long-term with no input whatsoever from workers is Fantasyland. What's it going to be . . . investor driven, with only the 250,000 or so people that are able to participate in investment instruments? And THAT survives somehow? Even the greedmongers needed American worker's money to fuel the stock market bonanza of the 1990s.

We cannot be a nation that's run by six corporations and 250 million people doing each other's hair or cleaning each other's houses; diminishing returns doesn't allow for such a thing to happen. Crime is going to go through the roof faster than the number of people on the public dole will. A consumer-based economy chock-loaded with overeducated and underpaid workers that have next to no ability to consume eventually crashes, and each subsequent crash is always worse than the previous one. This will usher in depression and violence unseen in the nation's history . . . and yes, I HAVE heard of "The Civil War".

I really wouldn't want to be the last six wealthy men in a poor kingdom of 300 million or even 6.99 billion. Laws no longer apply to people with nothing to lose.

[The2ndWheel]

34. The government will be forced to do the basic income thing at some point

Not for consumption primarily, but just to keep people from turning to the violence you're talking about. Money is becoming more and more abstract. The need for people doing the work isn't going to go up, if the energy for that is cheap enough.

That's really where it all comes together. Will energy be cheap, or will it be expensive? That will help determine the course of the future. The roads we go down when we get there haven't been built yet.

Maybe that creates a society where we're all free of need, and do what we want. Maybe it creates a society where we're all lumps on the couch living life out in a video game. Maybe we all turn into the kids of the uber-wealthy who inherit their parent's money. Maybe it's a combination of all 3 and any other scenario you can think of. 7 billion+ people currently. Plenty of ways it can go.

[HughBeaumont]

36. I'm all for a Guaranteed Minimum Income. Even Milton Friedman suggested it.

My question is: short of taxation levels that would send this nation's petty and selfish wealthy to exile in droves and diminishing tangible work opportunities that drive tax revenue thanks to automation and profiteering, where's the money going to come from to make it happen?

I would shudder to think what would happen if the consumption tax (FairTax) comes into fruition. It's bad enough that higher education and reasonable health care is slowly being reserved for the wealthy . . . we don't need more roadblocks.

Does entrepreneurship die due to lack of capital also? Small businesses are mostly localized niches to start off with, and they're the first to go in a contraction.

[librechik]

27. Republican Agenda: Dismantle the social safety web in exactly 20 years-cuz

poor people vote Democratic. and then they will all be dead! Right? Count on a repub president in 2032

[librechik]

28. Oh and let the infrastructure go to hell so they can laugh at how many jobs

they are keeping off the books to each other.

[lumberjack_jeff]

29. Productivity improvement without a strong mechanism to spread the benefit is a recipe for failure.

"Failure" = think mad max.

[SoCalDem]

35. As a society we MUST address the needs of the people who used to have those jobs

or there will be a revolution.