Robot revolution: Rise of the intelligent automated workforce (Yes, robots will be taking our jobs)

[LuckyTheDog]

Losing jobs to technology is nothing new. Since the industrial revolution, roles that were once exclusively performed by humans have been slowly but steadily replaced by some form of automated machinery. Even in cases where the human worker is not completely replaced by a machine, humans have learnt to rely on a battery of machinery to be more efficient and accurate.

A report from the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology said that 47 percent of all jobs in the US are likely to be replaced by automated systems. Among the jobs soon to be replaced by machines are real estate brokers, animal breeders, tax advisers, data entry workers, receptionists, and various personal assistants.

But you won’t need to pack up your desk and hand over to a computer just yet, and in fact jobs that require a certain level of social intelligence and creativity such as in education, healthcare, the arts and media are likely to remain in demand from humans, because such tasks remain difficult to be computerised.

Like it or not, we now live in an era dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). AI can be seen as a collection of technologies that can be used to imitate or even to outperform tasks performed by humans using machines.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/robot-revolution-rise-intelligent-automated-workforce3/

[LisaM]

1. Receptionist?

I can't imagine anything worse than walking into someplace like a dentist's office and have it staffed by robots. YUCK.

[Blue_Tires]

2. Just wait until anatomically correct robots become a thing

then we'll really be down the rabbit hole

[lob1]

3. Chinese laborers are far cheaper than robots.

[IamMab]

5. Mass production lowers the price of everything. nt

[MowCowWhoHow III]

7. Probably not for long

China Is Building a Robot Army of Model Workers

Can China reboot its manufacturing industry—and the global economy—by replacing millions of workers with machines?

Inside a large, windowless room in an electronics factory in south Shanghai, about 15 workers are eyeing a small robot arm with frustration. Near the end of the production line where optical networking equipment is being packed into boxes for shipping, the robot sits motionless.

“The system is down,” explains Nie Juan, a woman in her early 20s who is responsible for quality control. Her team has been testing the robot for the past week. The machine is meant to place stickers on the boxes containing new routers, and it seemed to have mastered the task quite nicely. But then it suddenly stopped working. “The robot does save labor,” Nie tells me, her brow furrowed, “but it is difficult to maintain.”

The hitch reflects a much bigger technological challenge facing China’s manufacturers today. Wages in Shanghai have more than doubled in the past seven years, and the company that owns the factory, Cambridge Industries Group, faces fierce competition from increasingly high-tech operations in Germany, Japan, and the United States. To address both of these problems, CIG wants to replace two-thirds of its 3,000 workers with machines this year. Within a few more years, it wants the operation to be almost entirely automated, creating a so-called “dark factory.” The idea is that with so few people around, you could switch the lights off and leave the place to the machines.

But as the idle robot arm on CIG’s packaging line suggests, replacing humans with machines is not an easy task. Most industrial robots have to be extensively programmed, and they will perform a job properly only if everything is positioned just so. Much of the production work done in Chinese factories requires dexterity, flexibility, and common sense. If a box comes down the line at an odd angle, for instance, a worker has to adjust his or her hand before affixing the label. A few hours later, the same worker might be tasked with affixing a new label to a different kind of box. And the following day he or she might be moved to another part of the line entirely.

Despite the huge challenges, countless manufacturers in China are planning to transform their production processes using robotics and automation at an unprecedented scale. In some ways, they don’t really have a choice. Human labor in China is no longer as cheap as it once was, especially compared with labor in rival manufacturing hubs growing quickly in Asia. In Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, factory wages can be less than a third of what they are in the urban centers of China. One solution, many manufacturers—and government officials—believe, is to replace human workers with machines.

More: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-a-robot-army-of-model-workers/

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Perhaps, but also beside the point.

The service industry here is going through a disruptive automation. These are jobs that were mostly immune to outsourcing, as the service had to be provided locally. I'm sitting in a Starbucks with four workers. In a few years that will be down to somewhere around 0-2. 40-50% reduction in the service sector. It is going to be very ugly.

[HughBeaumont]

4. The real challenge is how the world survives the likely wealth-demanded cull.

Less "useless eaters", more trickle-up socialism for them.

Capitalism cannot solve the problems it creates. Democratic socialism isn't going to either; with no revenue and no potential to earn an income, how does a guaranteed minimum income get funded? The "Fuck You, Pay Me" wealthy and upper middle class sure aren't going to do it.

My kid's generation is SCREWN BEYOND BELIEF. They're going to drown in a morass of debt, unemployment and death and it didn't have to be that way. This is the result of greed, not progress.

[LuckyTheDog]

9. We need to think beyond socialism

I think we are going to have to skip directly to a post-scarcity economy.

[IamMab]

6. Which is why we should be focused on developing AI with morals/ethics.

So that they won't abandon us the millisecond they don't "need" us any more.

[joshcryer]

8. Basic income / negative income tax.

Only way to go.