The Robots Are Coming

[KmH]

Consider what it will be like, job wise, 50 years from today.

The Robots Are Coming for Garment Workers

 

[Overread]

This has been steadily happening for years since the Industrial Revolution. It seems to flip flop around between machines being cheaper to finding countries where workers can be paid dirt cheap for the same work.

I've also read that some machines start of cheaper, but can work out more expensive in the long run because retooling and adjusting for new materials, products and ideas can sometimes cost way more than it would have to pay and train human staff.

We are still a very long way from when machines will do everything, but there wil lbe a nasty period between then (if) and now where machines take more jobs and it gets harder on the marketto secure work. Then again vast population increase also makes jobs all the harder to get.

 

[compur]

Consider what it will be like, job wise, 50 years from today.

By then people will BE machines so it will all work out.

 

[john.margetts]

Before I retired, I worked in a factory, on the production lines. When I started there in 2002, we had about 100 people on each shift on the lines plus support people. When I retired, two years ago, we were down to 6. Those 6 spent their time looking at computer screens.

There are two big drawbacks. 1) the machines need to work all day every day to cover the very high capital costs. You cannot lay them off if the work dries up. Our work was seasonal but they need to keep those machines working regardless. 2) as Overread mentioned, machines are not adaptable. We could switch from product A to product B in a matter of minutes when I was running a team of 40 people. The machines need to be reset and readjusted which can take hours.

 

[KmH]

Machines are available today that are not only adaptable, they are autonomous and able to react to changing conditions.

I imagine, conservatively, that 50 years from today between 1/4 and 1/2 of the US population will not have jobs because robots are doing the work those people used to do.

 

[john.margetts]

Machines are available today that are not only adaptable, they are autonomous and able to react to changing conditions.

Within very small limits. A person can go from fixing wheel nuts on a new car to producing the trial balance on the business' accounts in a matter of seconds - and then go outside and paint the building while organising the staff rotas for the next day.

 

[Overread]

And the adaptable machines capable within greater limits are still limited and also cost a fortune to make and keep running. We are still very much in the see-saw period where mass production can make machines viable, but any significant changes in that market and machine infrastructure can be as much a liability as it was a help.

 

[ceemac]

Sounds like me, overread. Until they make machines that can (will) shovel snow, I'm still viable. Depending on where I put it I can be a pretty good liability. (But I don't cost a lot to keep running)

 

[Fred von den Berg]

No jobs means no income tax means no schools or hospitals or public services or police or or or; or are the companies actually willing to start paying their fair share in this world? If robots or other automated systems are employed, then the companies MUST pay the same amount of tax as would be collected from ALL the people made redundant. The alternative is chaos. Also, if there are fewer and fewer paid jobs, who will have any money to buy the products made by the robots? Again, there must be taxation in order to provide a basic income for the redundant human workforce.

No automation without taxation!

 

[KmH]

Exactly. Based on how things are now.
There is already discussion about a national income everybody gets.

Apple, said to be the wealthiest corporation, has something like $300 billion in cash, let alone it's harder assets.
That would pay for a lot of community services like fighting fires and policing.

My query is - Consider what it will be like, job wise, 50 years from today.

 

[john.margetts]

In the 60s we were told we would have problems filling all the free time we would have in a few decades. Never happened. Factory workers now normally work 12 hour shifts rather than the 8 hour shifts usual in the 60s.