A robot stole my job back in 2008, and things are just getting worse, according to this infographic from Focus magazine. It’s a long graphic, so check out the full thing after the break.
Although I on principle don’t approve of the alarmist anti-robot language (even casually, unless it’s really funny), it’s a lot of interesting info… The big question, though, is whether it’s a bad thing or a good thing. Obviously, having a job and then not having a job because your boss bought a robot instead is a bad thing. But robots are designed to take over tasks that are dull, dirty, and dangerous, so hypothetically, the humans that are being replaced would be able to move on to more interesting tasks. Unfortunately, this is probably not the way it’s going to work, and it’s inevitable that a significant percentage of humans are just going to be made obsolete by robots that can perform repetitive tasks far faster and more precisely and don’t need breaks or air conditioning or pensions or health insurance or even lights.
I’m not saying that we should all go out and OMG PANIC because our jobs are at risk, but at the same time, it’s not something that would be nice to be surprised by. Maybe, if you get a chance, put a little bit of thought into this question: what is it that you do that a robot or computer program couldn’t?
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Robots or any mechanical contraptions might decrease the employment percentage, but you also need to know that who will run the robots? (when its broken, errors, using it etc)companies would also need skilled workers to learn and understand how to use the robots which will create jobs with somewhat high salary (you need a skilled worker to run them which requires training and which causes an increase in salaries).
This is nothing new, people need to figure out something else to do. Maybe the population problem needs to be addressed. People moaned about ‘machines taking our jobs’ when tractors and combine harvesters arrived in the 1830s.
nice girls
Our governments should spend more of our tax-dollars on something we want. Lot’s a people want to cheer every time a robot put’s someone out of work. I’m for a fully automated robotics factory, with self replicating robotic arms. Highly automated renewable energy, windmills or underwater water mills. Highly automated steel production. Highly automated chip manufacturing, and Linux. I’ve seen some automated building manufacturing companies starting up as well. Other prerequisite products can eventually be manufactured as well. All source code and blueprints have to be fully owned with rights to an infinite amount of use. All owned by the citizens of the country concerned. Small factories at first, with all of the bugs worked out, so that it largely builds itself in the end. It should be affordable, I’m an economic conservative. Eventually the complex can produce consumer goods besides steel, energy, chips, buildings, and robotics. Charities and the open source community can help as well. I’ll license source code in myself, with a liberal model that allows infinite replication without cost(one time fee model).