Are Robotics/AI killing American Jobs?

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Manual labor/Factory work can be hard and mundane. Technology has made these easier, safer, or eliminates jobs altogether. They have also increases productivity.

Do you see Robotics/AI killing millions of jobs average people used to make a good living?
 
Originally Posted By: ZZman
Do you see Robotics/AI killing millions of jobs average people used to make a good living?

That's been happening for many decades now.
 
I would love if robots replaced all the workers in restaurants. That way you get a very consistent product and don't have to tip.
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Robotics are changing the jobs Americans will be hired to do. Workers will need more education and training. Obviously a college degree is good if you can manage to go for 4 years. But a minimum of HS and a year of technical school. Apprenticeship maybe.

There will be more and more people who are technologically unemployed.

Think of the fireman on steam trains when diesel trains came of age.
 
I believe when the:
* Typewriter
* Sewing Machine
* Farm Tractor
...... were invented, people were worried about job loss.

A lot of this AI is making factories more productive which lead to lower prices.
Plus, inexpensive Chinese items makes it easier for people to live.

I read about some Countries giving its people a national paycheck.
Example: If your breathing, you receive a check to put everyone at the poverty level.
There are some articles about (pros & cons) the U.S. doing it.
 
There is a great push for automation in manufacturing. However, low volume products generally don't warrant a robotic assembly line.

Certainly, in my line of work (aviation) assembly line automation is still only a part of aircraft production. We still employ thousands of people to hand assemble components. It's difficult, for example, for robots to string wiring harnesses nose to tail and wing tip to wing tip, on exceedingly complex, low volume aircraft, such as corporate jets. It's not just a plug-n-play job.

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15 yrs ago, fiber optic technology reduced the volume of space required and the people required to implement phone service by a hundred fold. In ATT's facilities, there are more bdlg maintenance staff than tech staff
 
I'm with Mastersolenoid. Robots aren't the only pieces of equipment that have replaced workers in mundane, repetitive production. If you've ever watched the show "How it's made", you'll see all kinds of equipment that have been used in the past century that have replaced manual labor in high volume production. Just because they're called "robots" and evoke visions of anthromorphism from Hollywood stories doesn't make them any different from other machinery. It's just another sophisticated piece of equipment that evolved from the manufacturing sector.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: ZZman
Do you see Robotics/AI killing millions of jobs average people used to make a good living?

That's been happening for many decades now.


Exactly!
Automation has slowly been taking over jobs worldwide since I started full time work in the early 70's. Today, even moreso.
 
Originally Posted By: MasterSolenoid
I believe when the:
* Typewriter
* Sewing Machine
* Farm Tractor
...... were invented, people were worried about job loss.

A lot of this AI is making factories more productive which lead to lower prices. Plus, inexpensive Chinese items makes it easier for people to live. I read about some Countries giving its people a national paycheck. Example: If your breathing, you receive a check to put everyone at the poverty level. There are some articles about (pros & cons) the U.S. doing it.
I agree with what you say but I do question how much of those "savings" will be passed to the end consumer versus absorbed by corporate greed, but that is a discussion for another day.
 
Robotics create more high paying skilled jobs. Someone has to fix them when they break down. Ask me I know. Where I worked, it took two or more skilled crafts to repair a robot that replaced one production worker.
 
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One problem with robots and technology is they don't spend money which drives a consumer driven economy like the U. S.

I am afraid that the middle class dream for many is just that now, a dream. Their job opportunities to the middle class are gone or shrinking.
 
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So, should we go back to needle and thread instead of sewing machines, because sewing machines don't spend money like people that sew? To what point should we scale back the use of production machinery for the sake of hiring more workers?

If you walk into any factory, you'll see machinery that has replaced people. Not all machinery is robots.

I seriously think people are hung up on the word "robot."
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
So, should we go back to needle and thread instead of sewing machines, because sewing machines don't spend money like people that sew?


Depends, people used to control the equipment. Computers now can run the machines themselves.
 
Robots don't join unions and they don't lose productivity talking about what happened over at their neighbors the Jackson's last night. Plus they don't need smoke breaks.
 
Not at all. It is the fact that millions of good paying middle class jobs have been eliminated by technology, automation etc. It will only continue to get worse.
 
Considering not much resistance was put up about off shoring jobs, Robots will just make the employment picture more precarious and less stable unless people put their foot down and demand protection from government that supposedly is there to help protect its citizens.

But most likely this will never happen because of who owns who and the fact that people can't seem to organize like they once did.

Sad.
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Originally Posted By: ZZman
Not at all. It is the fact that millions of good paying middle class jobs have been eliminated by technology, automation etc. It will only continue to get worse.

Partly wrong:
-President Nixon visited China to "open" relations a long time ago.
-the Great Generation and the Baby Boomers "stream-lined" , "improved" and outsourced a lot of jobs too...China, India, Vietnam, HK, Taiwan, Russia, Eastern Europe, Philippines, Indonesia,etc etc.....for a long time already.....and this was with/without robots/machinery too.

Let's not look at the black and white and the red veil for the bull/ pane-et-circum, but let's be the good minds here on BITOG and see what it is Today: Many levels of gray and a World economy.....
 
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