Automation-based job loss will be concentrated in male centered sector of the economy

redpillbanana · 2015-08-15T20:35:44+00:00

To be fair, many female-dominated sectors were wiped out by computers a long time ago. In fact, they used to call women "computers" and the compute clusters of the WWII era were rooms full of women.

Secretaries were not needed nearly as much when word processing and email came around.

Telephone operators were almost always female, and some experts predicted that by 1980, every woman in the USA would be a telephone operator. Luckily, they developed automated telephone switches before that happened.

I predict that real estate agents as we know them today (mostly women) will soon go the way of the dodo.

PlusGoody · 2015-08-15T19:58:48+00:00

By far the biggest job category to go will be drivers. Automated cars and trucks that can run 24 hours a day, not 10 like human driven cars, and with a lower accident rate.

Waiters are already being replaced by computers, and not AI either, but $100-in-bulk Android tablets that the Applebees of the world put at the table. You maybe add one $9/hr untipped non-English-speaking busboy per shift to bring out ordered items while losing five $20 an hour after tips waiters. And the amazing thing is that not only do you save on costs, you actually make revenue. People order more food when the tablet's right there, the orders are done more accurately, and the tables turn much faster.

zombig · 2015-08-15T19:13:59+00:00

Quite a good study on the subject: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

I think the best protection against automation of labor is being a capital owner/allocator. A machine can't take your capital or real estate (especially in the US, where there is no population decline behind the corner and real estate prices won't fall significantly.

Also, remember this graph: http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/files/2015/04/09/composition.png

scallopkid · 2015-08-15T18:56:01+00:00

People who think this isn't happening or isn't a big deal should definitely check out CGP Grey's Humans Need Not Apply.

TheHappyGiant · 2015-08-15T19:31:58+00:00

Men have both sides of the coin, our jobs are both the easiest and hardest to automate. The first ones to go will be basic machine operators such as truck drivers. Next you'll see, and are seeing the the second wave, office and medical jobs that can be automated which are dominated by women. Finally you'll see the some but not a majority of STEM field jobs being automated.

The thing you need to remember about this change is that the cost of goods and services will drop drastically (homes, food, clothing, etc). So you'll require less money to live comfortably. Eventually the cost of a good will only be the return required from the capital investment (the automation) which will be tiny since the only barrier to entry will be capital.

Source: I'm the one doing the automation

AndreNowzick · 2015-08-15T18:45:38+00:00

I was in biotech for about 3 years after college which was shit. I then spent the last 2 years in web development making a good middle class income ($105,000 in the Bay, but more like $80,000 if we adjust for cost of living). I will be 30 when I enter medical school. I'm not thrilled about entering at 30, and I intend/hope to get into a competitive specialty and not internal medicine/family practice, but programming is a shit field unless you're bright, and lucky enough to make it big otherwise you're a peasant always at the mercy of your employer's whims and fancies.

For example, I'm sure you all saw the article today about how Amazon is a shit place to work at. That's the future of programming at most places. So I believe this "golden" age of programming will not last for more than a couple of decades – and guess where that will put all of us. Yep, back to square one.

Of course, any field where men have to produce will be eventually diminished and/or lost. Women's jobs won't because they tend to concentrate in fields that are more immune to job loss and comfortable i.e. government bureaucrats, health field, etc.

Redpillc0re · 2015-08-15T20:09:24+00:00

Technology has removed men's jobs for centuries, and as a result there is an entire culture that presses the men of every generation (more than women) to catch up. Men have always moved to something new, more competitive and cutting edge. OTOH, women ,for example, are now struggling to enter the IT, decades after the first men peaked in the field. Women nurses and nannies may not lose their job, but that job will keep getting cheaper and cheaper. People-facing jobs are not the highly-paid ones, and thus men will never care for them. The course of things that the article predicts has been disproved by history multiple times in the past century. The conclusions of this article are just false.

AngrySmartass · 2015-08-15T19:11:58+00:00

I don't know man; as long as your job requires dealing with multiple factors that can't (could; but the automation cost would outweigh the use) be calculated - you should be just fine. E.g. problem solving, process improvement, creative approach strategies etc. and these are the skills that will make you an indespensible asset.

If you're a truck driver now, it's gonna take some time until you'll lose your job to automated vehicles. If you aren't yet, why even aspire to be a truck driver. Wherever you are, if you can read this, you got the internet, you can do something else.

From what I've personally seen; the assistant jobs the majority of women find themselves copy-pasting Excel sheets from one file into another, changing Word templates, printing and sending them out the whole day. Shit doesn't require a lot of skill and there's clear patterns/ routines that can be automated much easier.

Futdashukup · 2015-08-15T21:19:09+00:00

Any job that can be reduced to algorithms and a heuristic - "back office", accountancy, law, banking - will go.The big change will be "the internet of things" where "computers" will become like water and electricity- just there.Your toilet will tell you when you are beginning to develop bowel cancer.Bespoke clothing and furniture will become the norm as you communicate directly to a machine that will produce your one-offs. Its fanciful to think we will be saved via our "creativity". There will be an elite of the highly , and I mean highly, creative types , the rest of us will be a serf class.

cariboo_j · 2015-08-15T23:05:39+00:00

If you want to maintain your status as a breadwinner, then you're going to need to find something that will still be valued (e.g. Engineering, MD, automation tech, etc.).

I thought providing for a woman was a fool's errand in today's legal climate? Why on earth would you want to be a breadwinner? Winning bread for yourself, maybe.

JackGoldsteinWrites · 2015-08-15T20:19:34+00:00

I'm not as weary of automation as I am of being off-shored.

Eventually I know virtual meetings, conference calls and online communities will make location irrelevant. My job requires social skills, experience and 7+ yrs of academic training. All of which can be learned by another human who lives in a cheaper area of the world.

The factury jobs were the first to go. Harder labor jobs will go soon, too. Then the knowledge jobs. Then as governments feel the sting of lost tax revenues, government jobs will dwindle out too. Obviously declining birth rates will also hit the tax base hard. We're headed for some tough times, and NO ONE is safe. The only insurance is to build equity and capital, so you can survive by letting your money work for you.

Sadly it's what is needed for scarcity-based fiat-money capitalism and crony democracy to collapse upon itself. I know we haven't really come up with a better system but this is usually how it works to get there.

asdfaw3tr · 2015-08-15T21:26:05+00:00

Strictly speaking, slaves are cheaper than computers. Additionally, people with status will always be willing to spend the money to have humans around to feed their egos and serve as a buffer between them and their machines. Nobody powerful spends any time they don't want to spend operating machines, or fighting with user interfaces, they have employees to do it.

The future is maids and the people who have them.

monsieurhire2 · 2015-08-15T19:53:46+00:00

Yeah, it's not just physical labor though, it's also intellectual labor as well. The ultimate goal for the people developing this stuff is something like a human, but with no rights at all, with the ability to work slavishly in perpetuity, for which they have absolute god-like control over.

energyinmotion · 2015-08-15T21:04:09+00:00

I was just thinking about this topic as I drove home this morning. I was staring at the US Postal Service vehicle/driver driving around and delivering mail. I was thinking about automated driverless vehicles with robotic arms scanning and delivering mail. With no human help whatsoever. FEDEX, USPS, and UPS are doomed. At least the low level workers. Computer scientists and CEOs are safe apparently.

IGoYouStayTwoAutumns · 2015-08-16T01:42:50+00:00

It's all going to be entrepreneurship and temp jobs in the future. Check out James Altucher (CHOOSE YOURSELF) for more.

mryddlin · 2015-08-16T11:01:26+00:00

https://youtu.be/q_vivC7c_1k On tipping, worth watching andnis hilarious.

Medicine is also going to take a hit too, IBM Watson is already significantly better at diagnosis than human doctors.

Doctors are 50/50 on their pass/fail on diagnosis where as Watson was over 80% correct in its diagnosis, its just way better at pattern matching and correlating large quantities of data.

Then there is the Blockchain technology, finance and legal are going to take a hit as well. Many of the services they provide can be replaced with technology solutions.

It's a big changing world out there and in the long run I see another huge productivity push upwards over the next 5-10 years and it will dramatically change our societies.

It has every single time we've moved into a new epoch.

Edit: automated vehicles have been covered but think about tying in automated payments and you'll be able to 'share' your vehicle like airBnB.

It will be more likely that people will owe shares ina vehicle to spread the cost and make revenue off the downtime. Cars should always be available to get the maximum efficiency out of them.

Anytime their not being used is money being pissed away, this should also push down the cost of public transit and make a lot of it redundant.

aenigme · 2015-08-15T20:46:40+00:00

Transportation is the number industry in the US. And it's ending is within site. Technology is evolving exponentially, so I give it 10 years. Max.

Uber wants half a million autonomous Tesla vehicles in 2020

Big Oil in Canada has already put down a deposit for autonomous big rigs

The Nevada DMV has given the green light for testing autonomous freightliners on their highways

Squeezymypenisy · 2015-08-15T21:09:25+00:00

Most of those automated jobs need a large support staff to keep the machines calibrated and automated trucks will most likely require a present driver by law for many years..

Female jobs are at risk as well. Secretary ate becoming less needed, and many schools are going online.

There really isn't a way to predict the future

SILENTSAM69 · 2015-08-15T19:23:45+00:00

I feel pretty safe as a construction worker. I feel bad for the shop guys, but most of them will likely be put out in the field as the shops are automated.

monzzter221 · 2015-08-16T01:48:33+00:00

Translation: become an entrepreneur, a businessman, rather than count on someone else to do that and employ you.

In the future where every menial task is done by machines, what pays is not being able to do those tasks, but owning some of those machines.

frostfire1337 · 2015-08-16T02:12:55+00:00

As a computer science graduate, I can inform you all that yes, new stuff is going to replace your jobs, yes low skill labour (and even high skill labour is going to disappear, and these areas are going to be hit hardest:

image recognition. why have a radiologist read your x ray scans, when google can?
Warehousing. why pay workers to move boxes of stuff when a small robot can?
Driving. Why have a driver for anything when it can drive itself? This includes truck drivers.
Deliveries. (see above)
Manufacture. Fully automated factories that work 24/7 turning raw iron ingots, recycled plastic pellets, paper and ink into packaged ready to sell on store shelf razors exist. Go figure. 6.Lawyers for case discovery

What is going to stay: Computer aided drafting. This is a field that I predict will expand. Engineering. Learn solidworks already, and learn your maths! EMT will stay jobs requiring weird positions on buildings will stay. geologist for oil will stay. most oil jobs will stay

scurvy_tail · 2015-08-16T10:57:36+00:00

People over-estimate the difficulty of doing other things. It is because we are programmed into our routines. You can easily train to do something else. You can easily start your own business, and do well enough that you survive, even if you do not thrive. People are bound by their own rigid interpretations of possibility. I believe that you need only be aware of the future, so as to determine your path towards it. I know, for instance, that the job I do now shall be ripped apart within three years. Within those three years, I need to create a more substantive niche for myself in another field. That is something I fully intend to do once I have completed the purchase of my house in the next few months. That's the problem for me at the minute, in that, while I can look towards and recognised my need to evolve, I need proof of my present security and income as collateral to complete the purchase of my house. Once that is done, through my awareness of the impending changes in my (unskilled) job, I shall evolve.

It's never too late to change. It is only by keeping on changing that we can survive in the competitive industries. Even the most secure-seeming jobs or careers could come under threat. There is no limit to what machines might achieve in the future. That said, even machines need checks and balances. Machines have to be designed, built, and then supervised. Machines need to be evolved, perhaps one day, we shall surpass even the idea of machines and create something else entirely, the like of which we can barely imagine at present. Change is eternal. As long as babies are born and the population is growing, everything shall spiral onwards, to the point where all who are unwilling to adapt will be left behind.

You can adapt. You can make yourself indispensable. Or you can become obsolete. But, you do have a choice. As long as you're passable intelligent, possess some kind of foresight, and are determined to stay afloat among the struggle, you have the necessary tools not merely to survive, but to thrive. As long as you have intelligence enough to get by, it all comes down to your drive. The sad truth is that the vast majority of people are unwilling, unable or else too terrified to evolve and become a part of a 21st-century work-force. There will always be jobs, but only if you are capable of doing them.

abetterarsonist · 2015-08-16T15:20:01+00:00

Hmm...I suppose robots won't be replacing criminals, so there's always that.

TheRedThrowAwayPill · 2015-08-16T01:38:31+00:00

And if you couple that with the fact women of have been tripping up boys' education for ~15 years now .. you have a bad recipe for a decline in competitiveness at the national level.

Of course .. with all this automation and loss of all these jobs, that means the economy will shrink accordingly. Right?

JeanValjean197o · 2015-08-16T02:15:46+00:00

I agree that automation is a concern, but as other posters have said, it's also going to affect a lot of women.

Use of tablets in restaurants will effect mainly women as they make up the majority of these jobs.

And while I can see trouble for my own profession (truck driver) I am in a good spot financially that I'm not particularly worried about it. My home is paid for and right now I invest 80% of my after tax income. By the time automation erodes my job or drives down wages I'll already be retired.

Still, there are many driving jobs that automation isn't capable of doing. And what happens when the gps sends the truck into a lake or the automaton just can't figure out the directions?

Perhaps for dedicated routes where the machine does the same thing again and again it will work, but most trucking is random enough that a computer cannot comprehend it.

I ain't scared.

iamanalterror · 2015-08-18T11:09:26+00:00

The more automation that happens, the more we'll be forced into more mentally-stimulating jobs. Not necessarily a bad thing.

We could always start invading womens' jobs though. There aren't enough male teachers these days, for instance.

MrRexels · 2015-08-16T02:36:32+00:00

Medicine FTW. Good luck automating 8 years of education and dozens of practice.

RedPillProphet · 2015-08-15T18:27:58+00:00

As a software developer I say BRING IT. This only means more and more and more jobs in my field. And get this, jobs in this field are heavily dominated by men. The women that get hired are almost always useless. It requires extremely logical thinking, detachment from emotions, constant ability to admit you are wrong but faith in your own independent mental model as well as undivided focus. These are all things women are inherently terrible at. As soon as things get a little bit tough financially, all the paper pushing jobs women do will disappear but these value producing jobs are here to stay. I see no slow down in the next 2 decades.

Di-onysos · 2015-08-15T18:11:25+00:00

It doesn't mean that all jobs disappear, it means that some specific jobs might. New jobs will replace them.

Be smart, be constantly learning, be constantly looking for opportunities, be antifragile and you should do fine. Sure, you might have to change jobs, re-educate yourself, but so what? You're a man, you can deal with it.

thecleaneone · 2015-08-16T03:46:41+00:00

That's one of the reasons I've studied in computer engineering. The masses of sheep can all come banging at my door where my automated turrets will be waiting.

But seriously you need to prepare. I was talking to a dude who recently got a job at the port. He used to brag that his job wouldn't be automated because, he said, "Moving shit with the cranes while the moving ice is shaking the ship is very hard". Poor chap doesn't know what's coming, still thinks unions will save his ass.

Exactly_what_I_think · 2015-08-15T20:37:19+00:00

Good riddance to unskilled labor and the people that do it.

great_artists_steal · 2015-08-15T19:46:43+00:00

I don't find this believable for three reasons:

Physical labor is cheap, intellectual labor is expensive. Therefore, employers will be much more driven to automate white-collar service jobs than blue-collar physical jobs.
While it's been known for a while that robots are quite hard to make, in the past few years it turned out that many other high-level, almost intelligent tasks (vision, speech, translation, medical diagnosis, search, analysis, ...) are much easier to (at least partially) automate. Therefore I think that it's much more likely we'll see automation of secretary-type jobs than construction worker-type jobs.
Finally, the difference between physical and intellectual jobs is that getting an intellectual job 95% right is usually good enough, or will at least substantially increase human productivity (increasing in less demand for human workers), whereas getting a manual job 95% right means that there will still be a 5% danger of failure or death. Would you drive behind a self-driving truck if you knew it only prevents 95% of the accidents that a human can? Sure, a robot will be much better than a human in "normal" conditions (parking, highway driving, ...), but for handling unexpected situations you'll still need a human in charge.

LoL-Guru · 2015-08-15T18:23:38+00:00

High paying jobs go first; doctors, lawyers and highly paid specialists who make the most money. You don't build an expensive AI to replace a waiter or a clerk at a store that you only pay minimum wage. You use the money to replace the jobs that cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This doesn't mean human labour in those fields becomes obsolete but jobs will dissappear as automatons and AI are built to add efficiency to the work force.

Title	Automation-based job loss will be concentrated in male centered sector of the economy
Author	RoadtoFreakBeast
Upvotes	153
Comments	256
Date	August 15, 2015 5:44 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/TheRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3h45tu/automationbased_job_loss_will_be_concentrated_in/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/TheRedPill/automation-based-job-loss-will-be-concentrated-in.35581 https://theredarchive.com/post/35581

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