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The Robopocalypse

by kindsvater
4 replies
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I was reading this article about the Internet killing off jobs:

Is the internet killing middle class jobs?

The suggestion people should find robot resistant jobs like being a hair dresser made me laugh.

But it got me thinking about this scenario:

Pre-Internet: Company hires 100 employees and pays them $30k each to make products which are sold.

Robots / Internet: Company hires 10 employees and pays them $20k each to make the same products which are sold. Lower pay because supply/demand ratio gives company more wage leverage.

More money flows to the company owners and less to employees, and less to businesses employees would normally spend money on.

If robots / Internet are supposed to make our lives easier and better, what if there was this utopian scenario?

Robots make products for free. Government increases tax rate on product sales and distributes income to former employees so we can spend our time on the beach. Thanks robots!

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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

    Robots make products for free. Government increases tax rate on product sales and distributes income to former employees so we can spend our time on the beach. Thanks robots!

    .
    WHO pays the tax? It can't be the robots! And HEY, THEY are doing the work! It CAN'T be the employees! THEY aren't there anymore! It CAN'T be the owners because:

    1. there aren't enough of them.
    2. they make less per product, which are obviously more likely to be sold to those on the beach, etc....

    BESIDES, WHO designs/maintains/supplies the robots? Who checks the products? BTW Ever see Wall-E? I recommend it! Of course, there IS planet of the apes, time machine, etc... But Wall-E is a bit more realistic for the view YOU portray. Ironically, it is a PIXAR film! Then again, it would have cost a fortune to do that with people, etc....

    OK, in Wall-E, people are VERY FAT, LAZY, STUPID, ETC.... Their every whim or fear is provided for by robots and a huge entertainment complex. They CAN'T walk, but the chairs all move, so they just drive them to the destination. The "CAPTAIN" develops a mind of his own! He realizes that, for his ENTIRE "adult" life he has NOT been a captain, but a FIGURE HEAD! The CAPTAIN has been a ROBOT commanded from the VERY VERY VERY VERY distant past, like over 500 years prior! The "CAPTAIN" actually has to fight the captain for control, and try to change the mission BACK to what they were promised. They get back, and one wonders if they could ever have what their culture once had.

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author Karen Blundell
      Interesting! I think the Internet has given everyone more opportunities to succeed in their own small business rather than working for someone else.

      I could sure use some beach time - we are supposed to get snow this weekend up here ack!

      so much for spring
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Lafuddy
    "It was well over 60 years ago that a friend of mine told me about the following exchange.

    CIO President Walter Reuther was being shown through the Ford Motor plant in Cleveland recently.A company official proudly pointed to some new automatically controlled machines and asked Reuther: “How are you going to collect union dues from these guys?”

    Reuther replied: “How are you going to get them to buy Fords?“

    Reuther said it really did take place."


    Why Robots and Software Will Not Take Over the World
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    The OP article isn't off, that's for sure, software has only scraped the surface as far as replacing typical jobs.

    Silicon-based superintelligence and robots will dramatically alter labor markets — to name but one example, the most common job in most U.S. states probably will no longer be truck driver.
    This part is kinda funny because early this week I was saying that truck driving jobs in the US will soon be history. The only decent money in the trucking industry is long haul trucking, more miles equals more money.

    Now, picture this...

    All the major auto manufactures & large tech businesses are in a race to get driver-less vehicles on the road.

    So...

    The automated semi trucks do the easy work which is interstate driving, which in turn is where the money is at for truck drivers. You'll see driver-less trucks running the interstates going hub to hub, while human drivers do the local short haul jobs that require a lot of backing up trailers. Local trucking jobs are usually hourly jobs, unlike long-haul trucking that pays per mile. Local trucking jobs usually start at around $15/hr.

    They start small, automate taxi cabs & move up to coast to coast driver-less trucking. The trucks will be more expensive (at first) but large trucking businesses have hundreds/thousands of trucks that each require a driver earning between $35-60 thousand a year plus insurance, etc.. So say it cost $60 thousand for an upgrade per driver-less truck, that leaves at least 4 years of not paying a driver which saves $140-240 thousand over the lifetime of a semi truck. Now multiple that savings times hundreds/thousands of drivers per each trucking company. Big money.

    I know the numbers aren't going to be exact, my point is there's HUGE money about to happen for truck driving businesses in the US with automated trucks.

    Trucking is only one industry where jobs are going to tank because of software.

    Don't assume because your job can't be outsourced to a 3rd world country that the job won't eventually become obsolete (ex: long haul trucking) or force a job position into a lower paying wage (ex: local trucking).
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