Jobs that will disappear and what will people do instead?

I already have a car that brakes and steers for me. Quite frankly, it's safer to let it do the braking for me in stop and go traffic.

A completely automated car that does everything for you is not far off at all. HHR is off-base once again...

*Sigh*, when will you all learn that Humanity Has Risen just wants to abolish progress and live in the biblical stone age? Every post of his confirms this hilarious belief system of his. Why do you guys even bother?

If you want entertainment from right-wing loonies just turn on Fox News. At least they are somewhat entertaining when they speak their nonsense.

That aside, I do want to comment on this thread. The great modern thinker Robert Anton Wilson proposed a large incentive from the government to be paid to any worker that can design a robot to do their job. He thought that the government providing huge incentives towards this end would nudge the progress along a lot faster. Can't say I disagree much. I think capitalism is naturally working this wave towards progress, and hopefully true progressives continue this trend going forward.

But either way, this era is upon us and it's only going to continue to evolve. With the evolution of YouTube, virtual reality, robots, nanotechnology, etc., it all points towards a work force that is largely going to be non-human.

I was just talking to my mom about this the other day. I don't believe it will be too long until a robot can be programmed to do an open heart surgery, flawlessly without error, better than any human. It's just a matter of time until this level is reached.

My advice is to not be like HHR and just embrace the change. I know it's scary but we should all live through it. And if we don't we'll die trying

I'm sorry but there's a cultural barrier to self driving cars. The roads are open and free to anyone to go anywhere at anytime. You'd have to overcome the stigma of fear which would is not likely to go away soon.

Trains..there's a reason for the expression "railroaded".

As a teenager I came up with an idea for for an automated "people mover" that was essentially a train system where people walked onto increasingly faster people movers (like at airports, they look like flat, horizontal escalators at ground level). Since speed is relative you could move on and off faster and slower people movers quite easily and before you know it you were in DC.

Just a few years ago I heard the idea in an old radio show called X minus One, and it turns out Robert Heinlein had the exact same idea



Of course, planes increasingly fly themselves these days. But we have the illusion of pilots - those two people sleaping in the locked cabin in the front - and already we've had a few problems because of it.

Automation is definitely a trend in engineering right now, I can verify that as an sw engineer who's job it was to automate his process.
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On another note, you knpw what's a lot safer than delivery by drone? Pneumatic tubes.

*Sigh*, when will you all learn that Humanity Has Risen just wants to abolish progress and live in the biblical stone age? Every post of his confirms this hilarious belief system of his. Why do you guys even bother?

If you want entertainment from right-wing loonies just turn on Fox News. At least they are somewhat entertaining when they speak their nonsense.

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leave your willful ignorance on the P&R boards. Thanks.

I was just talking to my mom about this the other day.

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Hey, there's another thing GG didn't bring up. The eventual disappearance of parents.

I expect cars will be getting more and more automated assistance as time goes on. Then some cars will be designed to make it safe for people with various disabilities to drive. Once the blind can drive, we'll be all set.

I think it is going to need some infrastructure help, though. I bet some tiny transmitters in the stoplights and road signs would make driving more reliable. A common entity (utility? government? car companies communicating voluntarily?) that keeps track of what cars are where plus their destinations could really help with commute times, too.

As for the freedom thing… yeah, there will be a few hold-outs. Eventually those hold-outs will be responsible for the majority of the accidents and they'll start getting banned on the open road.

My caralready anticipates turns in the road and slows me down (if I turn on those settings), by just using maps and GPS. Pretty cool stuff.

Humanity has risen! said:

Google is able to make a prototype that can run in a nice California road where they leave them alone, but add the various innumerable complexities that driving entails, add problems like who is responsible in case of an accident or dangerous situation, add things like cold climates with snow, ice, potholes, and you have something of a mind-boggling complexity worse than the Tower of Babel. Sorry, but in your dreams.

Oil was interesting because it could be extracted with very little energy and effort. When it costs more to extract it it is not as beneficial. This is why peak oil was already passed a long while ago.

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You're talking about a completely autonomous car that was never expected to come to market right away. Their point was "because we can" and in so doing, the technology will slowly trickle in to the mainstream. Completely electric cars, while always being in the future predictions in popular science magazines were never thought to take off. People wanted gas engines that made noise and could be refilled quickly. Well that's obviously changing. Nevermind Google, we already have cars that are semi autonomous from DOZENS of car manufacturers from Mercedes on down to Hyundai. Have you actually seen what they can do? Were just in the infancy, and cars will brake, accelerate and even change lanes. Saying this is in our dreams, is a pretty naive statement.

All I am saying is that people tend to be overly optimistic when it comes to the tangibility of future progress. Last thing I saw, I didn't see any dealership I could see with a flying car.

And this is not only me who thinks that. Look up self-driving cars on Slashdot and you will see it is not as smooth as some of you guys think, you will also see many experts who say it is close to impractical or totally impractical. In a situation like driving there are many situations where human judgment is important. Also you fail to take into account that people drive their cars because they want to be in control of things, it's the same reason why they don't take public transportation or they are afraid when they take a plane: because they don't like being babied and because they don't like a machine driving them without personally being able to control their trajectory and be at the helm and in full control in case something goes awry.

I really do think that we tend to underestimate the importance of human adaptability and ingenuity in every day situations. One example of that is translation, I have seen people starting to say that translators will be replaced in the far future but it makes simply no sense. There is no way machine translation can ever get as good and stylish as a human imagination nor can it have all the culture of someone with multiple years of living.

Of course it's not smooth! It's in its infancy! What are you saying? That because they didn't get it perfect in the first day of release that it's a failure? It's a good thing we didn't use that logic for the lightbulb or even space flight. I find it amusing that your using flight and public transit as an example of humans not using them because they want to be in control. Hello! So by that logic, there shouldn't be any flight or public transit! People's perception changes over time. Just as I explained with the electric car. In the eighties, Ford released the Mustang SVO. The fastest mustang at the time. It was a turbocharged 4 cylinder. No one wanted it. Why? Because it didn't sound like a V8. 30 years later they're bringing it back in Ecoboost form, and people are excited. If we go back many years people never dreamed a calculator would be smaller than a building, then the transistor is invented. Privately owned spaceflight in the near future? Not a chance, yet not only did it happen, plans are already underway for human travel to Mars. Look at the last 100 years. Actually in just the space of just over 60 years we went people thinking humans would never fly to landing on the moon. That's less than someone's lifespan. Saying that many experts say it's not practicle doesn't really mean anything, because there's many experts who say it is. In fact they're the ones working on the technology.

I dont know, discuss ethics?

Humanity has risen! said:

Google is able to make a prototype that can run in a nice California road where they leave them alone, but add the various innumerable complexities that driving entails, add problems like who is responsible in case of an accident or dangerous situation, add things like cold climates with snow, ice, potholes, and you have something of a mind-boggling complexity worse than the Tower of Babel. Sorry, but in your dreams.

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I disagree with this as twenty years ago we could never have thought computers would be capable of doing what they are now.

I don't doubt cars will be able to drive themselves at all. I doubt humans are ready or will be ready (within a decade or two) for it however.

Oil was interesting because it could be extracted with very little energy and effort. When it costs more to extract it it is not as beneficial. This is why peak oil was already passed a long while ago.

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I'm not sure we have reached peak oil yet actually. New fields keep being found unless you're only talking about the easy-to-extract oil in places like Saudi...

Well, with the new technology to retrieve oil we could produce probably 5 times the oil we are doing now, within a couple of years. I just hope that'll never happen, I hope that instead we'll start using renewable energy sources! There is some small progress right now... it looks like China and USA might agree on reducing CO2... but I don't have such a high hopes, they've been close to agree before.

It doesn't help that the oil price is being dumped like crazy to prevent the changes from happening either. At least it is costing those greedy oil companies/countries a looooot of money this time!

I have a friend who works at Audi and happens to work in the area of autonomous driving. He says that it is a hot topic among car manufacturers and that there are many technological advances in this field. However, there are still many issues to resolve, mainly related to safety requirements and regulations and from what I understand there is still a very long way to go.

He told me that the city of Gothenburg in Sweden will perform an experiment in the near future where they allow a certain amount of autonomous cars to operate for testing purposes.

Asdraguuhl said:

I have a friend who works at Audi and happens to work in the area of autonomous driving. He says that it is a hot topic among car manufacturers and that there are many technological advances in this field. However, there are still many issues to resolve, mainly related to safety requirements and regulations and from what I understand there is still a very long way to go.

He told me that the city of Gothenborg in Sweden will perform an experiment in the near future where they allow a certain amount of autonomous cars to operate for testing purposes.

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It happens to be where I live So I know quite a lot about those experiments, we also have completely electric buses with indoor stations coming up... a great city to live in for many reasons.

GothicGothicness said:

… a great city to live in for many reasons.

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…Unless you are stuck with a 2nd hand rental contract .

P.S.

Oops, I mispelled your beloved city… my sincere apologies. It's Gothenburg…or better yet Göteborg .

Asdraguuhl said:

…Unless you are stuck with a 2nd hand rental contract .

P.S.

Oops, I mispelled your beloved city… my sincere apologies. It's Gothenburg…or better yet Göteborg .

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Yes, it is ridicules, if you want to rent any apartment without a second hand contract there is queue of 5-10 years, and if you want to rent in the good part of town… 40 years. Completely sick.

GothicGothicness said:

It happens to be where I live So I know quite a lot about those experiments, we also have completely electric buses with indoor stations coming up… a great city to live in for many reasons.

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Lovely place. If any city is likely to be first to go electric-only, it's got to be that one. If it does, I may be exercising my EU freedom of movement privilege.

GothicGothicness said:

It happens to be where I live So I know quite a lot about those experiments, we also have completely electric buses with indoor stations coming up… a great city to live in for many reasons.

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I was there in September for a 3 day conference. Having been to Oslo, then Stockholm, and finally Gothenburg (our three offices in Norway and Sweden), as much as I loved Stockholm, Gothenburg beat it by far! I'd move there in a heartbeat.

GothicGothicness said:

Well, with the new technology to retrieve oil we could produce probably 5 times the oil we are doing now, within a couple of years. I just hope that'll never happen, I hope that instead we'll start using renewable energy sources! There is some small progress right now… it looks like China and USA might agree on reducing CO2… but I don't have such a high hopes, they've been close to agree before.

It doesn't help that the oil price is being dumped like crazy to prevent the changes from happening either. At least it is costing those greedy oil companies/countries a looooot of money this time!

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From 1970 until now, Solar energy has gone from $100 a watt to 65 cents a watt. In the US alone, there's 300,000 solar farms, and it's projected to increase to 20 million in less than 10 years.

Caddy said:

From 1970 until now, Solar energy has gone from $100 a watt to 65 cents a watt. In the US alone, there's 300,000 solar farms, and it's projected to increase to 20 million in less than 10 years.

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Yes, I have invested in solar power stocks myself, I really hope it'll keep improving and there'll be no unknown ill-effects from that. Also I hope they can improve the material usage in those solar farms to be more environmental friendly.. but it is very promising to be sure.

Manufacturing is already highly automated.

I work at a millwork manufacturer and we have machines that do all kinds of stuff.

We only need people on the floor to load materials, load the program and oversee the machine then move finished pieces around.

About half our plant is dedicated to automation but the other half is architectural millwork and most of that is one off hand made items.