Didn't we hear the same arguments when automation and robotics became commonplace in the Automobile/Manufacturing industries, or in the business world when computers first started appearing in the office?

The reality is that some jobs will invariably go. However, it is far more likely than not that a whole raft of new jobs and industries will spring up around those industries that have automated. After all, someone needs to program the computers and service the robots.

Analysts simply attempting to scaremonger as usual.

> someone needs to program the computers and service the robots.

Yes, but how many persons are doing that, and how many persons have been replaced by the robot they service?

Also: While this means good business for me and others in IT, the people who are being displaced cannot just go find a job in these markets, as this requires special skills and knowledge.

We've been here before - first with farming automation, then manufacturing. There'll be new jobs that haven't even been though of.

People keep on making that assumption. It has never been proven as a fact.

It's a good job we didn't mechanise agriculture and that 99% of the population still work on farms.

Otherwise we'd have one hell of an unemployment problem.

It's impossible to prove as many new jobs are beyond our current comprehension. e,g. who 30 years ago would believe so many people could make a living being "influencers".

More importantly it's never been disproven .

254 years ago, Adam Smith claimed that human wants are infinite.

He hasn't been disproven yet. Until that's disproven we have no reason to believe that we won't continue dreaming up new occupations as we have done for a very long time.

People keep on making that assumption. It has never been proven as a fact.

Of course it has. Who worked in IT 75 years ago? How many are in the industry now?

200 years ago the mechanised cotton mills in Lancashire were well established. The need for weavers nosedived. People benefitted in that clothing became a lot cheaper. Money that had been needed for clothing could now be spent on something else . In other words, people were richer: their clothing needs were fulfilled but they now had additional money left over as well.

100 years ago 40% of the British population worked in agriculture. Now it's less than 3%. The difference in the tractor and other mechanisation and other technology such as fertilizer and pesticides. Even factoring in those working in these associated industries you don't have a third of the population on the dole, they are doing other things.

Again the population has benefited - food is comparatively far cheaper. You may spend what, 10, 20% of income on food. A century ago it would have been the majority. That "spare" money isn't just mounting up in bank accounts, it is being spent on other things that would not have been viable previously. Your standard of living has increased because you can afford those extras, the money you spend on them supports those providing them.

That not the point

The point of automation is to make less work for yourself

society doesent seem to realise this and as soon as one thing is automated we find new shit to do .

Now that we have tractors in the fields and robots in the factories we should be on about 2 days per week!

It is also a numbers game.

What robotics will be doing is replacing huge numbers of the jobs that are currently in the mean wage bracket.

What will remain is the debris at the bottom that is too expensive to automate and an ever decreasing number of skilled positions.

There are only so many "managers" needed. What this is all about is short term gains for the (already very well off) people in the upper echelons of business with increased profits.

This is not sustainable as they will start to lose their market as those who are displaced can no longer afford to buy the products and services these companies offer. The current incumbents simply don't care as it falls under "not my problem".

This is not the same as the mechanisation of construction or replacing production lines with robots. The replacement jobs just don't exist in the numbers required and are unlikely to be created.

Robots replacing jobs is not just a business issue, there are huge moral and social issues as well. Currently in the race quick money the long term issues are being ignored.

We have been replacing workers with robots for a hell of a long time.

It wasn't all that long ago that 99% of the population worked on farms.

Now we have (lots of) nurses. We have gym instructors. Etc. etc. Almost every job now didn't exist 200 years ago. And the same will be true in another 200 years.

More automation and mechanisation means that a task is more efficient. That means that as a society we are all a little bit richer. For example a robot that grinds the oats for your morning porridge means that your breakfast is cheaper than it would be if it was done by hand. That means less people working at the porridge factory on better money. It means cheaper porridge for you.

The people who lost their jobs? They can go and do something else. Our unemployment rate is bugger all - and that's after what? 200 years? of creeping advances in mechanisation?

Raising productivity means that wages go up and costs go down. That is why we are all ludicrously wealthy compared with a few decades ago. All this because we stopped wasting labour on things that we didn't need to do by hand anymore.

You remind me of the Malthusians. "This time it's different". It's not.

You and several other commantards seem to be missing the fact that those masses of unemployed people you are speaking of will not exist because they aren't being born. It is spelled out several times in the article that this is about falling birth rates and aging populations but you still seem to have missed the point. It is hard to displace someone who does not exist.

There are only so many "managers" needed.

Most management jobs - and all HR jobs - are already completely unnecessary. Robots won't replace them because they don't actually do anything.

Need something to make all the stuff the increasing number of oldies need.

By 2080 the Butlerian Jihad assuming humanity makes it that far

The researchers said that by 2035, about one in four people will be 65 or older, up from one in 13 in 1950; by 2060, this will rise to one in three.

If you take the line above then if everything continues on a linear path how many under 65s will there be by 2100?

Extrapolations like this are essentially meaningless. One can fit pretty much any curve one likes to three points, even supposing there's a constant underlying function. This is particularly the case where two of the three points are hypothetical. It would be really informative to have some detail from the period between 1950 and the present, against which to establish the nature of any trend. There have been two significant shifts in economic emphasis over those 70 years, and the rate of change has not been constant.

Nevertheless I suspect that the concept of "working age" will change significantly (indeed is already changing). Even now, 'important people' - politicians, performers and other celebrities already don't tend to retire in their mid-60s, and I suspect that a lot of others will be joining them (as they mostly did in earlier times, when 'retirement' was a luxury for the rich).

However I see a danger in that automation will serve as an excuse for the progressive elimination of job security - and not just for the 'oldies'. Zero rights employment is already on the rise, turning vast numbers of people into truly expendable 'human resources'.

> Zero rights employment is already on the rise, turning vast numbers of people into truly expendable 'human resources'.

That's not true.

Casual labour, as it was called before it was politicised, is very popular among people on those types of contract.

Approx 1 in 40 is on a "Zero Hour Contract". Polling shows that the vast majority of them want a ZHC because of the flexibility it gives them. They mostly aren't people who would rather work a 9-5. Think college students, stay at home mums who want a few hours here and there, etc.

I wrote zero rights employment, not zero hours . A fair zero hours contract will include statutory employment rights (as the Uber drivers have just won). An unfair zero rights contract doesn't, regardless of the hours contracted for (as the Uber drivers rightly complained about).

ZHC's can be, also, extremely unpleasant for those who need regular income, but can only get a ZHC; especially if the ZHC makes it impossible to have other work at the same time (perhaps by some stipulation that you must *always* be available at no notice).

The task therefore, for regulation, is to somehow balance the benefits and costs of a situation with two extremes. It might be, for example, that the positive side of ZHC's are more socially significant than the costs; or it might not.

I should have put a sarcasm tag on that post. I was just commenting on the stupid output of those numbers

Borkzilla ? Still ? In 2060 ?

Kill me now.

Can we have a hangman's noose icon ?

States have to tax robots as they tax workers. With more robots there will be less jobs, and if it's attractive to shareholders to increase dividends, expect more jobs erased. Robots do also produce wealth, so a part of that wealth should be beneficial to the whole community.

Christ on an self driving electric bicycle. What have I just read?

I'm not sure either.

Were you (a) giving a stage direction & some dialog for Christ; or (b) asking one of several nearby Christ's (presumably the one on an electric bicycle) for clarification?

:-)

12 million jobs will be lost by 2040 through automation technologies

.

Fantastic , the sooner we get every afternoon off , with the robot monkey butlers serving us cocktails the better.

Unfortunately this will require a massive societal shift away from the current system of

"if you're not working yourself into the grave 40 hours per week you dont deserve any money"

" Fantastic , the sooner we get every afternoon off , with the robot monkey butlers serving us cocktails the better "

For a potential ultimate outcome of this, see 'The Midas Plague' [Out of the Unknown, BBC2, 20 Dec. 1965]. The collection is available from the British Film Institute.

Right from the beginning of my working age life I've hated the modern feudalism that is the "career". The way people try to "advance themselves" - prostitute themselves. I looked hard for a way to get out of that horrible situation and it took me years to find it.

"Green energy and digital technologies could help offset the jobs lost to automation, Forrester added."

If we are expecting there to be such a huge need for green energy workers (probably box tickers) it sounds like a waste of time and money. Before covid we had full employment, the best in decades. Assuming jobs will be lost while ignoring jobs created causes this mistaken panic

If you can be replaced by a robot, your job SUCKS and you're better off without it

Did your boss follow that up with...

"...soooo, yeah, about that new machine that's being installed on your desk..."

Automation of jobs is nothing new. It's been happening since forever and the world economy hasn't collapsed yet. It gets rid of rote jobs and replaces them with jobs managing/maintaining the automation at a higher skill level and goes hand in hand with an increase in productivity. If people want jobs that they don't have to think about, those are going to get rarer and rarer much the same as there is very little demand these days for people skilled in the use of a scythe for harvesting wheat.

When I joined my current employer,a large university, thirty years ago we employed hundreds of secretaries to type things. Now we employ none, but we employ more admin people than we ever did secretaries.