Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technolo...m5oei.html

Oxford University professor of Machine Learning Michael Osborne studied the characteristics of 702 jobs and figures 47% will be replaced by robots in the next 20 years.

Some industries will be hit more than others. He predicts that 87% of accommodation and food service jobs will be lost. 75% of transportation and warehousing jobs will be lost.

Jobs that are relatively safe include upper management (the suits always look out for themselves) and creative-type jobs that require lots of contextual knowledge.

Jobs that are in particular danger are low skill jobs.

I can imagine a wonderful brave-new-world coming in which only a privileged elite have jobs, incredible incomes and net worth, while the majority of the population are unemployed and live on public assistance. (Or alternatively, finally have the freedom to live lives of leisure.)

Some spokespeople have tried to pooh-pooh the gloomy prospect away by granting former employees the right to buy into full or partial ownership of the machines replacing them, and then it being their responsibility to maintain and repair them while receiving a measure of profit.

They will never invent a machine that makes a perfect burrito. Taco Bell does a fine job, but even in young minumum-wage hands the sour cream tends to goop up at one end over the other. It's that half a second pause as you reach the end of it with your spurting bottle, just enough to overspurt the luscious condiment into a cool creamy glob of heavenly delight.