60 Minutes - Are Robots Hurting Job Growth?

[akoscielski3]

I didn't see anyone post this yet.

Pretty interesting. I can see that the people that lose their jobs to robots dont realize they can become someone who makes robots instead. My dad's company makes the assembly lines and welders for GM, Toyota, Ford, Etc, and they're doing really well, and need people to operate CNC's, and do other jobs.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138922n

[Ether]

Originally Posted by akoscielski3

Are Robots Hurting Job Growth?

Food for thought: backhoes and front-end loaders are hurting job growth. Get rid of them and hire more people with shovels and wheelbarrows instead.

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by Ether

Food for thought: backhoes and front-end loaders are hurting job growth. Get rid of them and hire more people with shovels and wheelbarrows instead.

LOL true, very true

BTW I never noticed this before but why is your "rookie Year" 1969?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by akoscielski3

I never noticed this before but why is your "rookie Year" 1969?

That's when I left home.

[Kyle Love]

I have had to deal with many parents asking me this in the school system I work in. What people do not realize sometimes is that this increases the need to have a skilled workforce. A job where you simply screw a bolt into an assembly is not as readily available as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Using automation and robotics in the workplace does not totally replace the workers. There still needs to be people designing the robots, possible assembly, programming, servicing and selling these robots. Also, some jobs will never be done as well by a robot as compared to a human. For instance, a social worker or customer service rep (hopefully I am not the only one who gets frustrated with automated customer service options).

Basically, society cannot settle for having "easy" jobs in some disciplines anymore, people need to get training and an education so that they can be competitive in a job market that will demand it.

Just my $0.02

[Taylor]

The jobs done by robots are those that people don't want to do - based on their repetitive nature, tediousness, level of precision, or danger - both physical and mental.
These are jobs people shouldn't mind relinquishing.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Taylor

The jobs done by robots are those that people don't want to do - based on their repetitive nature, tediousness, level of precision, or danger - both physical and mental.
These are jobs people shouldn't mind relinquishing.

One man works in a factory stamping out parts 8 hours a day for 40 years and is perfectly happy doing so. He loves and provides for his family and his fulfillment is not related to his work.

Another man works in an office as an engineer and enjoys the challenge of creating designs and learning something new every day.

Swap these two men and they'd both be miserable.

Unfortunately, the first man's job is being eliminated by outsourcing and globalization. This is not an easy problem to solve.

[Sandvich]

The basic economic result of robotic labor is that instead of having one factory with 100 people making 100 products, you have 10 factories with 10 people each making 1000 products total.

/gross oversimplification

Originally Posted by Ether

One man works in a factory stamping out parts 8 hours a day for 40 years and is perfectly happy doing so. He loves and provides for his family and his fulfillment is not related to his work.

Another man works in an office as an engineer and enjoys the challenge of creating designs and learning something new every day.

Swap these two men and they'd both be miserable.

Unfortunately, the first man's job is being eliminated by outsourcing and globalization. This is not an easy problem to solve.

Outsourcing and globalization don't eliminate those jobs. They move them to foreign countries where other people are just as happy to do the same job.

In fact, because of the lower wages and standards of living in foreign countries, the effective result is that instead of (for example) one person getting paid $50,000 in the US for a job, there are five people in developing countries getting paid $10,000 each, but they are perfectly happy to do those jobs because it is an improvement compared to what they're used to, increasing overall happiness.

[Tristan Lall]

This article may be of interest: Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

This article may be of interest: Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs.

Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm. Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with machines. But the displaced workers did not sit idle. Instead, automation created hundreds of millions of jobs in entirely new fields. Those who once farmed were now manning the legions of factories that churned out farm equipment, cars, and other industrial products.

Notice how the manual labor that was made obsolete was replaced by a new form of manual labor.

What new form of manual labor will replace the displaced factory worker?

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

This article may be of interest: Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs.

My favorite part of the article was that it was written by Kevin Kelly, WFFA from Cyber Blue 234.

... maybe it's a different KK. But it's fun to pretend!

[Andrew Schuetze]

Here is a reply from an Industry Trade Group Publication