#Microblog Monday 238: Goodbye Jobs

by Mel

11 comments

1 Lori Lavender Luz { 03.18.19 at 9:07 am }

Oh, dear. I supposed I will never run out of things to worry about.

I kinda think that humanity as an organism will always need to do things for each other. I’m not sure this is an issue I will worry about too much.

2 JT { 03.18.19 at 9:25 am }

i do worry about an unemployment crisis. i tend to wait in line longer than i have to at my local stores because i do not want to use the self-checkout options. self-checkout is easier and convenient but it’s scary to think that computers will make up 95% of cashiers in a few years.

3 Parul Thakur { 03.18.19 at 10:03 am }

I am not worried since though jobs would move to bots, there would still be need for humans. So more jobs will be created to maybe code these bots or fix the AI. I am seeing some change but I also seeing how execution based jobs would go but more thinking kind of jobs will come in.

4 nicoleandmaggie { 03.18.19 at 10:35 am }

I am a PhD economist. I have gone to talks by the researchers doing cutting edge work on the effect of AI on the future labor market.

What should worry us is the widening education gap. Our technological change continues to be skill-biased (it benefits people with higher education and training and harms those with no skills). That means there will continue to be widening inequality between the education haves and the education have-nots. AI will create more demand for people who can do things that AI cannot do. Not just programming, but anything requiring creativity.

We have already seen the effects of SBTC over the past 30 years. We are getting widening inequality, and more precarious lifestyles for people who have a high school education or less, and worse, for their children. This is something the government could help fix with investment. But HRC who understood this and had so many (media-ignored) plans to deal with these problems didn’t get elected. Instead things are getting worse.

So… will I be ok? Will my kids be ok? Of course. We will benefit from SBTC. It’s the people who used to go into manufacturing jobs and can’t afford additional training who will be shafted.

5 Charlotte { 03.18.19 at 11:05 am }

So I am not sure I worry about the loss of jobs to AI because there will still be jobs that require humans, as others have pointed out.

However, in the medical field in the past 12ish years, I have seen countless jobs eliminated in favor of spreading the work of one into the work of many, assigning tasks to already taxed staff to “save budget dollars”. They gave us personal hospital phones for each department where calls are forwarded instead of having a person to answer phones…so we are giving patient care and answering a million calls and playing operator/fact-finder/problem-solver at the same time. We do not have support staff to help transport our patients, we too now have to do that. We don’t have support staff to do support staff work like getting images onto discs to go with the patient. We had all those things 12 years ago, and today we don’t. It’s seems small maybe, but it makes us less effective, it makes patient care less effective, it extends wait times for exams and other patients, making their entire stay longer as a result. It means more rushed and less personal care at times. No one in charge cares about anything except the bottom line. And no, extra budget dollars does not equal a raise in pay for all the extra work we do, not at all. We are expected to do more with less, and it’s become quite ridiculous. And frankly sad. That taking care of the sick has become yet another thing that’s all about the money and less about the humans we are serving.

6 Sharon { 03.18.19 at 2:32 pm }

I worry about loss of jobs in the future more for my sons (only 7 years old) than for myself. In my profession (law), I have been hearing that AI will replace my job for almost the entirety of my 15-year career, and I have not seen evidence that this has come to pass in any meaningful way.

It’s hard to know what to stress in your children’s education when it’s difficult to predict the world in which they will live.

7 Geochick { 03.18.19 at 2:51 pm }

I don’t know that I’m really worried about loss of jobs – it seems that with advancement the jobs maybe get shifted around. I know that would be the worst thing to tell someone who DOES lose their job to AI functions, because for them, it can be a horrible feeling to essentially lose your job to a computer. I worry more about the “do more with less” mentality that is pervasive everywhere. I see it in my work, where support positions like secretaries aren’t backfilled and more work is dumped on remaining secretaries who can’t stay on top of everything. It leads to low morale, crappy work and inefficiency. THAT I worry about a whole lot more.

8 loribeth { 03.18.19 at 3:03 pm }

I don’t think work is going to disappear, but the kinds of jobs we do are going to change. (They already are changing.) That’s already creating upheaval. I agree with Nicoleandmaggie, and with Charlotte. Sometimes it’s more about the money and keeping costs down/short-term savings than it is about long-term vision and listening to employees about what they really need to do their jobs better. I have been hearing for years about the coming labour shortage and how to keep seniors working longer (and of course a lot of seniors NEED to keep working, because they lack good pensions & benefits to retire on)… and yet, I see a lot more companies dumping long-service employees in the name of “downsizing” and “reorganization” (and then hiring younger employees at cheaper salaries and with a less-rich pension plan) than looking at ways to retain them and all that valuable institutional knowledge. (Which is precisely what happened to me and dh.)

Stepping off my soapbox now…

9 Jess { 03.18.19 at 10:01 pm }

I do worry about this, too. I echo those who mention the self-checkout lanes — I think I’ve used that maybe 4 times, out of frustration because there was only one human cashier available and a long line. I think that convenience and technology have made it so that some jobs are becoming obsolete. I know people who think that libraries are antiquated and won’t be around forever, but I think people were saying that when audiobooks came out and then again when Kindles and the like came out, and it has just meant that libraries have to become savvier to the technology, which they have. So maybe like Loribeth said, the jobs will change. Maybe it will be like a new new industrial revolution, where instead of assembly lines taking over, it’s robotics and AI, but there’s still people who need to program and develop and man the stuff.

Then I get worried that we’re living in the time of SkyNet and we’re all going to die in the Robot Wars.

I also agree with people who find it hard to think about what their kids should focus on as they plan their futures, because the jobs kids will have in the future probably don’t even exist yet today because technology keeps evolving so fast. I just hope that the need for HUMAN teachers never goes away, because while you could do online school and you could use “programs” and things online, nothing beats a living human connecting with you.

10 Lori Shandle-Fox { 03.19.19 at 9:06 am }

I’m not worried really. If that happens, there is a reason and it won’t be the only thing changing. I believe that as always, we will find a way around it to change and evolve out of necessity. Just like all of the jobs that have gotten outsourced from this Country could be one of the catalysts for the huge rise in the number of entrepreneurs: People didn’t have a job anymore so they created one that they really wanted.

11 Cristy { 03.19.19 at 10:10 am }

This is an old argument, based on comparing the jobs that currently exist. I do believe a lot of the current jobs will be extinct do to automation, but those will be replaced by information workers. That said, we will always need teachers, caregivers and those working in the creative industry; anything that requires the human element.

On an aside, I recently had the privilege of hearing about AI experts struggles with social media. They never imagined what a disaster the system could be. Hence I don’t think things are as dire as they claim given the systems they build are still very bugging and hackable.