When I look at the future, I really do worry about the upcoming automation wave and what it may do to our society. Right now many low skilled jobs are being replaced by machines, the popular right wing talking point is that those are entry level jobs, stepping stones and that people should be striving for more, easy to say but the realities of the world are another thing. What’s the excuse when robots start taking jobs from family doctors, lawyers or accountants, these are not people we think of being “losers” in society.
AJ+ has put together a great series of videos talking about the subject.
I really hope that by Maggie and I are retired before our jobs get automated away, mine is a bit harder I think (though not sure) as it’s based on human relationships but Maggie’s an accountant which is basically a series of inputs and outputs, her job could be done by a robot pretty easily. 🙁 I also worry about Brandon’s future, what type of job can he do that won’t be automated?
It’s something as a society we really need to think about, I think the solution we’ll eventually get to is some sort of universal basic income where everyone gets money no strings attached. Our society at the moment is built on consumption by the masses, if the masses have no money then it no longer works. In the short term I think it’s going to be very scary, the optimist in me thinks that the future can be really bright where robots do everything for us and we can live our lives out in luxury but the pessimist thinks we may head down some dystopian path where everyone except the richest people live in slums.
Who knows what the future will bring but this reality is closer than many think.
I came across your blog by accident and I find it to be quite impressive. You certainly touch upon a diverse number of topics! Keep up the good job.
In regards to this post I think that the greatest obstacle to full automation and robotic transformation will be human fear of the AI. People just don’t trust AI’s to be infallible and will distrust critical systems that don’t have a human in the loop. Case in point are airline jets – for the most part the jets can takeoff, fly, and land on full automation but I wonder how many people would trust their flight safety to be run only by computers. Robots will come for sure but I think it will take longer than you envision.
Where I see robots rapidly coming to the forefront might be in the military. Armed robots, subject to a human operator’s control, will make big headway within the next decade. I bet that the current generation of manned fighter jets, tanks, and ships will be the last that will see humans riding along in. Now that’s a scary thought.
Jek
Hi Jek, thanks for the kind words.
You’re right there will be a distrust and I do believe that there will be a human supervising AI at least for a little bit but it’s difficult to say how quickly society will accept driver-less or pilotless vehicles. Las Vegas is testing out driverless shuttle buses, it didn’t turn out too well but the technology is in its infancy. I wonder if my son Brandon will even need to learn to drive in 10 years.
I agree with you, the military will definitely be leading the way with robots, we already have armed aerial drones only a matter of time before drones in other areas come into play.
It’s certainly an exciting time and I guess we won’t have a choice but to see how everything plays out.
I am IronDroid. I am the future and there is nothing you can do about it. Technology is coming, embrace it.
My name is Tony and I am a friend of Jek. He told me about your wonderful blog so I decided to see for myself. It is a great blog, very interesting. I especially enjoy your posts on shooting as I am a shooter myself.
🙂
Haha. Whether we like it or not we can’t stop advancement in technology. 🙂
Thanks for the kind words, lol it’s just a place for me to put my thoughts down but I’m glad you guys enjoy it.