Quote from: dogechode on March 27, 2014, 06:58:02 PM

This is absurd.

Yes, burger flipping and screw tightening and poop-shoveling will soon no longer be available as jobs. But who's complaining? The fact is everyone thinks they are too good to do those jobs nowadays, and that includes the poor classes. The few people that are willing to do these jobs, expect absurd amounts of compensation for doing them (ie the fast food workers strikes.)

There are plenty of jobs and every time something gets automated, it tends to open up new avenues for careers. I think there is a certain line that people will not want to cross with automation due to society's ingrained fear of "thinking robots." So there should always be plenty of jobs for people that have a brain and are willing to use it - management, planning, research, medicine, etc etc...

The REAL problem is, and it's unpopular to say this but it's true, there is a strong correlation (at least here in the USA) between the groups of people who do these 'automate-able' jobs, and having a lot of children. They are quite literally out-breeding the scientists and white collar folks at an alarming rate. So you see, the group of people that work the jobs that are being taken away, is growing, while the group of people that work the jobs which are expanding, is stagnating or shrinking (this is currently being offset by immigration, H1B visas, etc.)

If you don't believe this, look at the decline in interest in mathematics, chemistry, engineering, etc. Many of those jobs are being filled by foreigners because most native home-grown Americans don't put in the study time and aren't interested in anything that has a hint of math in it.

Have you read anything in this debate? There are Engineers, Lawyers; people that have professional degrees that cannot find work (myself included) because automation are reducing even the numbers of professionals needed for projects. This isn't something that just affects manual labour jobs (however it does definitely affect them more than high tech jobs), but everyone that actually relies on income to survive.

Are you a commodity trader? Your days are numbered, Investment Banker? Again you are going to be replaced by automated agents. Just because you don't see thinking robots replacing jobs in "meat space" doesn't mean that isn't going to happen for knowledge based professions.

Funnily enough I'm actually developing an ANN heirarchy to eventually (as my master plan of course) to create a universal commodity trading agent, which will hopefully kill speculators as a profession.