Having a Job (rise of the machines)

[Furmedge]

The last two days I've been sat in a presentation from a company trying to sell us an accountancy and housing system. I watched 10 giddy accountants beaming at the thought of the new system saving them a 50% workload, I didn't have the heart to tell them it would mean half of them out of work this time next year.

 

The fella whose job has been cut by 100% didn't need telling anything.

[Ginny]

The switchboard at the council has gone 'digital' and it's an omnishambles. It's fine when handling binary operations like connecting you to the officer you want. Bur can it placate a mother of four who's ringing to complain the school bus was late again? No it can't. Whilst AI will be used to outsource a great deal of menial, logical tasks it will never be able to fully replicate human empathy. For that you need emotional intelligence which can only be learnt through experience.

If AI us to have a place in the workplace it's to continue to liberate the workers from the minutiae and repetitive admin tasks. This frees their time up to take the decisions requiring a degree of compassion and empathy.

An increasingly ageing and isolated population is creating get the demand for an empathetic working class to care for them. The very workers who have been displaced by self-service tills and automatic council reception desks.

It's seem 90% of humans in corporations I've worked in over the years have no idea what empathy or compassion is anyway mate. In fact there's seems to be a very strong link from being disconnected from those two emotions that determine how high and fast you rise. The less empathy, compassion and understanding you have - the quicker you rise and the more money you earn.

 

I did a leadership course were they were saying that leaders need strong emotional intelligence to lead a happy motivated workforce as people respond better when you treat them like people. I could see all the narcissistic physcopathic senior managers nodding along - not one of them with an ounce of emotional intelligence between them!!

[ElishaScottBC]

 

This was trending on youtube yesterday, the comments suggested it was a Reddit discussion that prompted it.

 

I'm in favour of a universal basic income, but similarly to renewable based energy it will take a huge shift in corporate interests to achieve it.

[SasaS]

It will probably continue for some time (jobs lost to tech and cheaper labour  abroad), whilst at the same time new jobs will emerge, something you never though you'd be paying somebody else to do for you and there would be more coaching /consulting/counseling  type of jobs. The transition would however be painful and dangerous, as various gaps (actual workload for example) and social exclusion will temporarily increase.  

 

We will continue to live in a consumerist society, which would be somewhat fortunate, as the super-rich and powerful (those controlling the technology) would not have sufficient incentive to keep the masses in abject poverty, as people would need to consume, not just work to produce goods others would trade for profit, as this could be done by machines.  In many / jobs professions we already spend more time communicating than actually working, and this will only increase, so a lot of jobs would be connected to that aspect. It will be the age of the influencer, influencer-spotter and influence-shaping technologist. 

[Hades]

It will probably continue for some time (jobs lost to tech and cheaper labour abroad), whilst at the same time new jobs will emerge, something you never though you'd be paying somebody else to do for you and there would be more coaching /consulting/counseling type of jobs. The transition would however be painful and dangerous, as various gaps (actual workload for example) and social exclusion will temporarily increase.

 

We will continue to live in a consumerist society, which would be somewhat fortunate, as the super-rich and powerful (those controlling the technology) would not have sufficient incentive to keep the masses in abject poverty, as people would need to consume, not just work to produce goods others would trade for profit, as this could be done by machines. In many / jobs professions we already spend more time communicating than actually working, and this will only increase, so a lot of jobs would be connected to that aspect. It will be the age of the influencer, influencer-spotter and influence-shaping technologist.

Fortunate? Beyond parody.

[TheHowieLama]

I work for an outsourcing money saving company 

 

 

squints...

[SasaS]

Fortunate? Beyond parody.

 

Fortunate as in consumerism needs consumers, and as long as you are needed as a consumer they need to allow you to generate sufficient (disposable) income, protect your basic consumer rights (even better if you have some freedom of choice) and leave you enough leisure time to consume and develop various more or less artificial needs. It's better than when the society just needs you to produce.  

 

Alternatively, technological advances could only be used for the common good, which they eventually probably would, but I think there would always be this cycle of disruption, adaptation, new disruption.

[Nunavut Patrick]

Great, I await a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up soon...

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

A bloke on here once said our working week would reduce and in order to keep the economy alive we'd have to be paid for doing nothing - I think he was right. I wonder what happened to him?

He might've voted in the Swiss referendum, when the idea of a universal basic income was largely rejected. It is something that, equitably, should happen. But, amongst those who'd have to fund it, there does seem to be a lack of backing for it. If businesses are doing their utmost to avoid paying taxes now, I can't see them rushing forward to put their hands in their pockets in the future to help fund such a basic income scheme. It'll take a huge change in mentality from appeasing shareholders and maximising the bottom line, to adopting and funding a scheme which some people look at in ignorance of the reality of our technologically advanced future and decry it as a "money for nothing" kind of thing.

 

Something will need to be done though. The impact on jobs is happening already. Self service check outs that can deal with 8-10 customers at once, reports of an increasingly robotic production environment in China. The union in our place have concerns that the Admin Assistant role will be/is being made redundant due to technology and automation. There was a story recently about an AI algorithm that processed defences against local parking fines and had an 80% odd success rate. I'd that could be developed upon, what impact for the legal profession?

 

I find it equally worrying and empowering. But, how it will effect our lives, from the extremes of not having to work but still getting money and being able to live a life of freedom, spare time to embrace culture, hobbies and interests etc, to the opposite end of the spectrum, the rich, technology owners and developers getting even richer, while mass unemployment and poverty is created, maybe even the creation of a new underclass, the useless, depends solely on how business and politicians deal with one of the major issues that could impact upon the human race in the not too distant future.

[Jairzinho]

Fortunate as in consumerism needs consumers, and as long as you are needed as a consumer they need to allow you to generate sufficient (disposable) income, protect your basic consumer rights (even better if you have some freedom of choice) and leave you enough leisure time to consume and develop various more or less artificial needs. It's better than when the society just needs you to produce.  

 

Alternatively, technological advances could only be used for the common good, which they eventually probably would, but I think there would always be this cycle of disruption, adaptation, new disruption.

 

It doesn't necessarily need British consumers though. 

[stringvest]

It doesn't necessarily need British consumers though. 

 

 

hang on, we'll become a net exporter again?

 

Excellent news.  I know a fisherman in Spain who's looking for one.

[KMD7]

He's outside NVs house with a Stanley knife and some gaffer tape.

 

#prayforNV

[cuppatea]

I resent the fuck out of having to spend half of my waking hours working. I'm essentially selling a significant portion of my limited, precious time on earth for money. People will look back on us poor cunts working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week with pity.

[SasaS]

It doesn't necessarily need British consumers though. 

Well, every little helps. 65 million is not to be sniffed at.

[Anubis]

What's that Matt Damon film where the rich live on an arc in near orbit, and everyone on Earth lives in a South African shanty town. Isn't that where we're headed?

[Guest Pistonbroke]

What's that Matt Damon film where the rich live on an arc in near orbit, and everyone on Earth lives in a South African shanty town. Isn't that where we're headed?

 

Eylsium? 

[stringvest]

What's that Matt Damon film where the rich live on an arc in near orbit, and everyone on Earth lives in a South African shanty town. Isn't that where we're headed?

 

 

that's like West Hampstead and Kilburn

[Carvalho Diablo]

When I'm in need of a cuddle and a blow job I don't reach for my Dyson.

[Frankenhooker]

When I'm in need of a cuddle and a blow job I don't reach for my Dyson.

Have you got an upright or one of those smaller handheld ones ? The handheld ones are quite intimate.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Its shit More money for shareholders less for us I really dont see how this less work for the same pay will work. No company will want to do that when the greedy cunts at the top could have a bigger slice of the pie

This is it, really.

 

Any sensible, decent way of ordering society for the benefit of its citizens would recognise that increasing automation could free up leisure time.  So, for example, if you found a way to get the same outputs with 10% less need for labour, you could give everybody in your workforce an extra half-day a week free time.  Or you could, for example, give parents - both parents - a couple of years' paid career break when the kids are first born.  Or you could encourage more full-time education for adults, so people can go and work somewhere for 10 or 20 years, then take a few years out to study something completely new.  The possibilities are endless.

 

However, thanks to Capitalism, none of that is going to happen.

 

Maybe Capitalism is the reason why so much science fiction is dystopian rather than optimistic.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Great, I await a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up soon...

I think that every time I see Donald Trump.

[SasaS]

This is it, really.

 

Any sensible, decent way of ordering society for the benefit of its citizens would recognise that increasing automation could free up leisure time.  So, for example, if you found a way to get the same outputs with 10% less need for labour, you could give everybody in your workforce an extra half-day a week free time.  Or you could, for example, give parents - both parents - a couple of years' paid career break when the kids are first born.  Or you could encourage more full-time education for adults, so people can go and work somewhere for 10 or 20 years, then take a few years out to study something completely new.  The possibilities are endless.

 

However, thanks to Capitalism, none of that is going to happen.

 

Maybe Capitalism is the reason why so much science fiction is dystopian rather than optimistic.

To be fair, none of that ever happened in socialist countries either.

 

[SasaS]

[mattyq]

that's like West Hampstead and Kilburn

Haha, I've had some good times in Kilburn

More like Highgate and Archway

[Rico1304]

that's like West Hampstead and Kilburn

I love West Hampstead, but I guess you knew that already.