telstarbox
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Don't assume that any profession is immune to technological change...
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Where are the new jobs coming from?
- Thread starter Dave1987
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Don't assume that any profession is immune to technological change...
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Johnuk123
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What an extraordinary statement, both jobs will eventually become automated like virtually every single job.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Technological change will affect all jobs.
But it won't make all jobs obsolete. Technology may well assist teaching or medicine, but it won't make the person controlling the technology obsolete.
Robot teachers? Nah.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Quite. Computer-based training has its role now, but it'll be a very long time before technology can totally replace a human in that field. More likely it'll be used to enhance learning, and the way learning works will shift from facts-by-rote to research and critical thinking, even at an early age. Why do you need to learn facts (as distinct from skills) if you can Google them?
deltic
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How does it predict future unemployment - there is a higher proportion of adults in employment today than there has ever been. The nature of employment has changed and will continue to change but there is no reason to believe there will be a fundamental change in proportion employed.
The UK has a very flexible labour market - one reason why unemployment did not rise as much as expected during the last recession and why employment has grown faster than expected now is because real wage levels have fallen. So despite increases in the last few years they are still at the same level as 10 years ago.
Those on minimum wages have benefited from increases in line or greater than inflation - highly skilled workers have seen large pay increases - it is the hollowed out middle that has lost out badly in real terms which has led to the rise of the likes of UKIP.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
e-learning modules and webinars, etc, are already regularly used to deliver training, especially in the workplace. But teaching and lecturing are about more than just delivering the training content to the delegates, and it'll be a very very long time- if ever- before AI or technology can replace everything that a lecturer or a teacher does. Even the OU- probably the pioneers in distance learning- can't manage it.
Many universities are launching e-learning courses in conjunction with private providers, some of them allegedly to degree level, but the human interaction isn't gone even with those.
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Well that is exactly what tech should be used for, to assist humans in making our lives and jobs easier and less stressful rather than seeking to automate the human out of the job completely. If management continually seek to eliminate wage budgets via automation in the search of higher profits they may well end up destroying the economy that buys their products and services.
TheKnightWho
Established Member
To levels that are lower than those in much of the 19th century. It's predicting a 1.7% rise in 5 years, which is likely to do with Brexit more than anything else.
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It will eventually, but not for a good while yet. Robots already exist that can perform surgery better than real doctors - it's only a matter of time before they become autonomous.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
But remember that some of us like that automation. I prefer the idea of being able to interact directly with my bank accounts or with the ticketing system - but if it all goes wrong I like the idea of being able to talk to a human without too much time pressure.
That is something automation can do to allow better services at the same price.
TheKnightWho
Established Member
This. The issue is that resisting automation constrains the development of new positions which, despite the protestations of Dave1987 are actually being created just as old ones are lost. It's the reason why the service industry has boomed as manufacturing fell in this country - a lot more people are around to do them these days as we don't need vast armies of people down the mines or building ships anymore.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
I don't agree that the work can ever fully be replaced by automatons. Robotic surgery still needs to be supervised, but surgery is only a tiny part of a doctor's role.
I can see some auxiliary staff becoming obsolete, just as (for instance) the radio engineer has on the flight deck of aircraft. But there still needs to be someone there to supervise the automation, if nothing else, as we've just recently seen in Dubai.
You really think that automation is creating as many jobs at the same wage level as its replacing? Wow what world do you live in?
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Well quite.
Our economy switched from making the widgets to selling the widgets. But the internet is putting the traditional retail market out of business. Think how few people are involved in getting, say, an Amazon parcel to my door. And think what they might be paid for the job.
In the long term the automation you love and crave could well destroy the economy, unless new jobs are created which I just don't see. The amount of jobs being created don't match what they replaced. Tech should assist humans and not replace them, otherwise the economy is doomed.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Evidence?
Well you did claim that there was once 100% employment and the graph shows that there never was such a thing therefore the graph proves you were wrong.
There are so many examples of where automation has replaced multiple jobs with one or two. And with regards to job creation there have been a few big industries but mostly small firms created by tech and apart from a few exceptions none are huge employers in the hundreds or even thousands of jobs. Tech is replacing hundreds and hundreds of jobs every year and currently creating hardly any in return. In the very very long term that's not sustainable.
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TheKnightWho
Established Member
The one where new industries arise because of the automation. Or do you think we'd have seen telephone call centres when we were all still sending letters? Automation brings us new resources because of the new levels of production it gives us - with those new resources new industries are born. This has been happening for hundreds of years, and the unemployment graph I showed you demonstrates that you are simply wrong in your preconceptions.
A lack of imagination on your part does not mean the economy is going to fail. This is exactly the same type of argument as the Luddites, who thought that automated farms meant there'd be no more jobs. This occurred just before the industrial revolution really took off - they couldn't have been more wrong.
Just a quick Google turns up positions that didn't even exist 5 years ago - never mind 15 or 50. A projected spike in unemployment in this country for reasons related to the largest economic change in this country for 40 years does not somehow prove that the economy is doomed due to there being no more jobs. Hell - if no-one had to work that would be fine by me. It even has a name: the technological singularity. But we aren't likely to see that anytime soon. The fact is that society is going to change beyond recognition over the next century, but just as you're probably doing a job that was inconceivable in some (or many) ways 100 years ago, many people will be in jobs that are inconceivable to us today in 100 years' time. Importantly, this applies as much to the economy those jobs are created in as it does to the jobs themselves. This sort of thing is exactly why predictions of the future always look so awkward and dated when looked at many years later (think of Victorian projections of the year 2000 or already how dated Star Trek manages to be!): there are innumerable changes that it was impossible for them to have comprehended because of technological development. Even if they predict the general idea correctly, the execution is always completely wrong because they're stuck in their (to them) present-day mindset, and they're imagining those things in their own society and not in one that has been shaped by 100+ years of technological development.
I've attached a graph of the unemployment rates of the largest economies in the world - they're falling because we're recovering from 8 years ago (and unemployment always lags behind economic phenomena). None of them are projected to rise, either.
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I understand your argument but that graph shows unemployment figures on today's economy with today's industries. Has nothing to do with how much unemployment there could be in 50-100 years because of more and more automation. Yes there were multiple types of jobs created off the back of things like the internet and the mobile phone. In recent times social media was invented which created jobs. Since then arguably the only things that have been developed have actually cost jobs or are going to result in job losses. Yes there may be another industry created which results in thousands of new well paid jobs but if there isn't jobs will just be lost and the economy suffer.
Like what?
TheKnightWho
Established Member
If your argument had any weight, why did mass unemployment not happen during the industrial revolution? Your lack of foresight (which, arguably, almost no-one has on that scale) does not mean new jobs won't be created. Mass unemployment simply isn't happening.
When innovation is automated, then you might have a point. Until then, we will always need humans around. It wouldn't be a bad thing if they were all in third and fourth sector industries either - that's where humans really shine.
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NSEFAN
Established Member
Even if every job was made redundant, why would that be a bad thing? We learn to have a sense of belonging because of it, but at the end of the day we only work because we have to in our current situation.
SteveP29
Member
Doesn't really need any evidence.
Take your bank account for example.
A bank isn't going to employ somebody (with the required qualifications, experience and knowledge of the banking system) to sit at a desk somewhere 'just in case' their computer goes down and they can't access their accounts online.
Walk into any medium sized branch of my bank, HSBC and you won't see 5-10 people behind desks conducting transactions with people, you'll see (pardon the pun), banks of machines taking in coins and notes, and giving it out, rows of computers so the customer can look at their accounts online, a couple of telephone lines in case they want to speak to someone and maybe 2 people floorwalking to ensure the machines are working properly and the people using them can do so.
The bank that the organisation I work for had a refurb and got rid of 5 tellers and replaced them with automatic tellers and 2 human tellers to conduct face to face transactions, consequently, the queue is ALWAYS out of the door, unless you get there at the moment the doors open.
The evidence is out there, its already happened
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
To be fair a "bank branch" is not something I have entered, nor had any desire to enter, since I switched first to a telephone based bank in 1999 (which even back then had very rudimentary view-only Internet banking), and an Internet bank around 2002. (The banks concerned are the Co-operative Bank and their offshoot Smile, though with recent troubles I am considering a move to First Direct).
Cheques are deposited by post, cash just gets spent.
Cheques are deposited by post, cash just gets spent.
TheKnightWho
Established Member
We understand the argument. We just think it's wrong because history has always had situations like this, and because the unemployment figures don't stack up in your favour.
We're not stupid because we disagree with you - we just think you're wrong.
If the future economy doesn't really on currency and trade and people aren't required to work to live then I see your point. It would require a massively different economy and that hasn't changed for hundreds of years.
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Well considering current unemployment figures are predicted to rise then actually it does stack in my favour! And as we see more and more redundancies with less and less vacancies then I'm pretty confident that the economy will shrink sadly. Unfortunately it's those at the bottom that suffer with the "white collar" management who preside over the demise but always manage to keep their own jobs. You've had an anecdote from Steve at how multiple jobs were lost at his bank branch due to automation. Wonder where you think the replacement jobs were created there? There are many many more examples than that all over the country with thousands of jobs lost.
Who said anything about stupid? I believe you are completely wrong. Thankfully most people on this forum will probably be retired or six foot under when it might really become a problem.
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TheKnightWho
Established Member
No - they're predicted to rise by 1.7%. That is not in your favour, especially when it is around the same levels of employment as in the 19th century - the same period that you were saying was great only a few posts above. Countries other than the UK are set to see theirs fall - they also have technological development. And do you seriously think businesses would introduce automation that would lose them money (i.e. shrink the economy)? :roll: Cherry-picking little bits of info that suit your argument and ignoring the extensive argument I've laid out (which you haven't even tried to address) is just becoming insulting. You also implied that people who didn't agree with you didn't understand your argument. I do - there is just no evidence to back it up.
I'm out.
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Are you kidding me? Seriously?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China
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Yes! The blood thirsty monster that in the free market every business is looking for ways they can reduce costs to maximise profits. Big business management doesn't look at it as far as multiple jobs lost from the economy. They look at it from the less wages, pensions and tax to pay. The fact that they are contributing to shrinking the economy their business relies on doesn't bother them as long as the margins and profits are good whilst they are in charge.
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The principal of trade hasn't changed for hundreds of years. You exchange something you have for something someone else has. If no one worked for a wage then the principals of trade would have to change. Or are you not familiar with trade concepts :roll:
TheKnightWho
Established Member
If an industry causes job losses elsewhere it also reduces demand for its own product. These macro-economic phenomena offset each other. Innovation is also offset by innovation elsewhere. You are making the same argument that the Luddites made, and it didn't come true there either. I'm no champion of the free-market, but I at least appreciate the effects that it has. There is absolutely no incentive in business to allow the economy to shrink - look what happened when it did.
Beyond the technological singularity (which we aren't remotely close to achieving), there is absolutely no basis for saying that unemployment is going to rise consistently in the long-term due to innovation. As I said before - it does result in short-term job losses, and the turbulence of the 19th century is a testament to that. However, you might have noticed that after that there was also a period of 1-2% unemployment for 2 decades.
Simply saying "my local bank has lost some jobs recently due to automation" is no reason to lose our heads. Yes, it is possible that eventually everything may be automated - until innovation is automated and no-one wants any human interaction there is no need to worry.
Yes, yes it has. Beyond the very simple process of exchanging goods for money, trade is nearly unrecognisable in its current form from even 200 years ago.
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