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A.I. Expert Says Automation Could Replace 40% of Jobs in 15 Years

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An artificial intelligence expert and venture capitalist predicts automation will cause major changes in the workforce.

Speaking to CBS News’ Scott Pelley in an interview for 60 Minutes on Sunday, Kai Fu Lee said that he believes 40% of the world’s jobs will be replaced by robots capable of automating tasks. He said that both blue collar and white collar professions will be affected, but he believes those who drive for a living could be most affected.

“Chauffeurs, truck drivers, anyone who does driving for a living—their jobs will be disrupted more in the 15-25 year time frame,” he said in the interview. “Many jobs that seem a little bit complex, chef, waiter, a lot of things will become automated.”

Lee’s comments are not necessarily new. Many who support artificial intelligence and automation believe that they can fundamentally change the workforce. But many of those people also believe that while some jobs could be affected, humans will find new opportunities surrounding artificial intelligence and take on new professions.

A growing number of detractors—including Elon Musk, who has warned about the power of artificial intelligence—worry that automation could disrupt entire communities and disproportionately affect low-income workers.

Still, many, including Lee, believe there’s no slowing down artificial intelligence and its impact on society.

A.I. Expert Kai Fu Lee: 40% of Jobs Will Be Lost to AI, Robots | Fortune

A Chinese venture capitalist spoiling to reap the profits from laying off millions of American workers isn't the lone voice predicting 40% of workers to lose their jobs. In fact, it seems as if there's a consensus around this 40% figure, which was echoed a year ago by at an economic forum in Europe-



It's become clichéd to compare our current tech revolution to the industrial revolution, and assuage people not to worry, after all, those horse and buggies were phased out and we managed to survive! But I'm not sure that adequately covers what we're going to deal with here in America.

10 million truck drivers are going to find themselves our of work in 15 years, according to current predictions. Sending that many people into unemployment could produce tragic results. Also, the country is more than double the size that it was when the industrial revolution phased out many types of workers. How can a country of 350 million fractured and divided people dealing with massive unemployment manage to coalesce into a cohesive nation, when we aren't even one now?

We've added over 100 million people from mostly low-skilled countries to our population since 1980. Might we regret that when 40% of jobs disappear?
 
A Chinese venture capitalist spoiling to reap the profits from laying off millions of American workers isn't the lone voice predicting 40% of workers to lose their jobs. In fact, it seems as if there's a consensus around this 40% figure, which was echoed a year ago by at an economic forum in Europe-



It's become clichéd to compare our current tech revolution to the industrial revolution, and assuage people not to worry, after all, those horse and buggies were phased out and we managed to survive! But I'm not sure that adequately covers what we're going to deal with here in America.

10 million truck drivers are going to find themselves our of work in 15 years, according to current predictions. Sending that many people into unemployment could produce tragic results. Also, the country is more than double the size that it was when the industrial revolution phased out many types of workers. How can a country of 350 million fractured and divided people dealing with massive unemployment manage to coalesce into a cohesive nation, when we aren't even one now?

We've added over 100 million people from mostly low-skilled countries to our population since 1980. Might we regret that when 40% of jobs disappear?
But just think how great it will be to have all those laid off people losing $15/hr. jobs rather than keeping $10/hr. jobs
 
But just think how great it will be to have all those laid off people losing $15/hr. jobs rather than keeping $10/hr. jobs

I believe the trucking industry is closer to $20-25 an hour, though I'm not entirely sure. Some people support a family of 4 on such wages. That's one industry alone predicted to lose 10 million jobs.
 
A Chinese venture capitalist spoiling to reap the profits from laying off millions of American workers isn't the lone voice predicting 40% of workers to lose their jobs. In fact, it seems as if there's a consensus around this 40% figure, which was echoed a year ago by at an economic forum in Europe-

It's become clichéd to compare our current tech revolution to the industrial revolution, and assuage people not to worry, after all, those horse and buggies were phased out and we managed to survive! But I'm not sure that adequately covers what we're going to deal with here in America.

10 million truck drivers are going to find themselves our of work in 15 years, according to current predictions. Sending that many people into unemployment could produce tragic results. Also, the country is more than double the size that it was when the industrial revolution phased out many types of workers. How can a country of 350 million fractured and divided people dealing with massive unemployment manage to coalesce into a cohesive nation, when we aren't even one now?

We've added over 100 million people from mostly low-skilled countries to our population since 1980. Might we regret that when 40% of jobs disappear?

Mass automation is inevitable and welcome; what is scary and uncertain is the question of how society handles the paradigm shift, and whether it's willing to do things like engage in guaranteed basic incomes, infrastructure investment and advanced training/education regimes to offset the negative aspects, while levying the taxes needed to pay for it. So far as America is concerned, with megadonors essentially domineering every political office that matters at this juncture, the answer appears to be no, which is obviously alarming so far as long term social stability goes. I mean hell, neither side is willing to take any kind of serious action to deal with employers who willingly and knowingly utilize illegal immigrants (which is the core element underlying any immigration problem the country may have) for precisely the reason they're paid not to.
 
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I believe the trucking industry is closer to $20-25 an hour, though I'm not entirely sure. Some people support a family of 4 on such wages. That's one industry alone predicted to lose 10 million jobs.
Yeah, well, I'm not overly optimistic about self-driving trucks becoming prominent quite that fast.
 
It is not a surprise comment.

The whole point of automation, which artificial intelligence is an extension of, is removal of repeat process labor. Autonomous driving is one example that has far reaching implications into the labor force, and it stands to reason that everything from moving people to moving products would be impacted by elimination of those jobs.

In economic terms it comes down to what happens first.

If development of these systems is faster than education trends for those what would be in these jobs then the impact is catastrophic, removing from the workforce such a large group of people who participate at the 5th and 4th income quintile. If the reverse happens then we might save off an impact to the economy to the same extreme.

The OP article hints at this in terms of warnings from others in this development space who are looking at artificial intelligence in operation of vehicles.
 
We've added over 100 million people from mostly low-skilled countries to our population since 1980. Might we regret that when 40% of jobs disappear?

new farm equipment put 99% all the people on earth out of work, but they all found new jobs so there no worries from new inventions.
 
Mass automation is inevitable and welcome; what is scary and uncertain is the question of how society handles the paradigm shift, and whether it's willing to do things like engage in guaranteed basic incomes, infrastructure investment and advanced training/education regimes to offset the negative aspects, while levying the taxes needed to pay for it. So far as America is concerned, with megadonors essentially domineering every political office that matters at this juncture, the answer appears to be no, which is obviously alarming so far as long term social stability goes. I mean hell, neither side is willing to take any kind of serious action to deal with employers who willingly and knowingly utilize illegal immigrants (which is the core element underlying any immigration problem the country may have) for precisely the reason they're paid not to.

I doubt it, humans are scumbags. Just look how many mega billionaires we have in this country while millions of workers live at or below poverty. They are greedy scumbags
 
I doubt it, humans are scumbags. Just look how many mega billionaires we have in this country while millions of workers live at or below poverty. They are greedy scumbags

why are the billionaires scumbags? You forgot to say?
 
A Chinese venture capitalist spoiling to reap the profits from laying off millions of American workers isn't the lone voice predicting 40% of workers to lose their jobs.

It'll never happen.

Automation will be implemented, but the rate of implementation will be so slow as to be imperceptible. The jobs that are "lost" will be replaced with other jobs.

I believe the trucking industry is closer to $20-25 an hour, though I'm not entirely sure. Some people support a family of 4 on such wages. That's one industry alone predicted to lose 10 million jobs.

It will never happen. Autonomous trucks and cars will always have an operator at the wheel.

Autonomous vehicles do not remove humans 100% from the equation. There will always be pedestrians, motorized pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

There will also be animals.

The mayor of a small town was killed when a deer struck his vehicle. No, I didn't stutter, he did not hit the deer, the deer hit him. His vehicle was rammed by a large buck, knocking his vehicle left of center at the exact moment another vehicle was in the oncoming lane. He was killed and persons in both vehicles were seriously injured.

The use of autonomous vehicles would not have altered that outcome.

You're still going to have fatalities and injuries for any number of reasons, even with the use of autonomous vehicles.
 
A Chinese venture capitalist spoiling to reap the profits from laying off millions of American workers isn't the lone voice predicting 40% of workers to lose their jobs. In fact, it seems as if there's a consensus around this 40% figure, which was echoed a year ago by at an economic forum in Europe-
It's become clichéd to compare our current tech revolution to the industrial revolution, and assuage people not to worry, after all, those horse and buggies were phased out and we managed to survive! But I'm not sure that adequately covers what we're going to deal with here in America. 10 million truck drivers are going to find themselves our of work in 15 years, according to current predictions. Sending that many people into unemployment could produce tragic results. Also, the country is more than double the size that it was when the industrial revolution phased out many types of workers. How can a country of 350 million fractured and divided people dealing with massive unemployment manage to coalesce into a cohesive nation, when we aren't even one now? .... Might we regret that when 40% of jobs disappear?

Just curious if you believe the scientific consensus on global warming and are similarly concerned about future regret, and tragic results, etc.?

I agree with Mircea, it will be such a long time coming, and done little bit by bit, people won't even notice.
New Tech always takes much, much longer than predicted, to replace embedded infrastructure, investment, training, tech, and existing businesses that fight against change.
 
Just curious if you believe the scientific consensus on global warming and are similarly concerned about future regret, and tragic results, etc.?

I'm not sure what global warming has to do with automation?

I agree with Mircea, it will be such a long time coming, and done little bit by bit, people won't even notice.
New Tech always takes much, much longer than predicted, to replace embedded infrastructure, investment, training, tech, and existing businesses that fight against change.

'40% of American jobs to be replaced in 15 years'..... Doesn't sound like a very long period to me. You don't think Americans are going to notice 40% of jobs going away in 1 and 1/2 decades? Good luck.
 
Just curious if you believe the scientific consensus on global warming and are similarly concerned about future regret, and tragic results, etc.?

I agree with Mircea, it will be such a long time coming, and done little bit by bit, people won't even notice.
New Tech always takes much, much longer than predicted, to replace embedded infrastructure, investment, training, tech, and existing businesses that fight against change.

Mach:

So true, just ask a typist, a librarian, a newspaper boy or a bank teller, if you can find one. My apologies if I sound glib here but the contraction of the demand for human labour which we are facing now due to both technology change and globalisation of labour markets is unpresidented in history. Capital intensive production is accelerating and long-term structural unemployment is increasing exponentially. The problem with exponential growth is that it seems very slow until it reaches a certain point but then it grows at an alarming rate to an asymptotic (near vertical) line in very short order. The collapse of the demand for human labour is not as far off as most people think. The spiral towards the bottom for wages and benefits has already begun over the last thirty years and soon surplus labourers will be so numerous and so desperate that violence and revolt will be in the air. That's why police forces are militarising all around the world and why militaries are putting more and more resources into urban warfare training. They are preparing for the implosion of traditional capitalism or corporatism due to a lack of labour-generated income and thus a collapse of consumer aggregate demand. There's no point producing goods and services for profit if almost everybody in a population cannot afford to buy them.

Cheers?
Evilroddy.
 
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the contraction of the demand for human labour which we are facing now due to both technology change and globalisation of labour markets is unpresidented in history.

not at all. farm equipmenet, for example, replaced 99% of the world's population that used to be farmers and 99% of the world's workers found something better to do. Now do you understand?
 
The spiral towards the bottom for wages and benefits has already begun over the last thirty years

totally insane of course. China is paying 1 billion people far far more than they earned 30 years ago. World wages and standards of living are skyrocketing, obviously!!
 
The collapse of the demand for human labour is not as far off as most people think.

yes its obvious, even in the USA where we have 97% employed!!! Its a total collapse!!
 
They are preparing for the implosion of traditional capitalism or

total insanity of course. China and india just switched 3 billion peopleto capitalism and they are booming at 8% a year. this is the exact opposite of imploding!! See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance? Is any other conclusion possible??
 
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not at all. farm equipmenet, for example, replaced 99% of the world's population that used to be farmers and 99% of the world's workers found something better to do. Now do you understand?

James972:

Between 1840 and 1890 millions of agricultural workers were displaced from farming in Europe and either migrated to the Americas or Africa to continue farming or moved to the cities of the old and new worlds to work as unskilled labour. This displacement of labour dropped wages and the standards of living and life expectancies of these new urban workers drastically as they lived in squalor, were exposed to disease and toxins of all sorts, lacked proper heating and sanitation, were packed into tenements like human sardines and were malnourished due to the very low wages despite very long hours of work. Only when these workers began to organise themselves into unions did these conditions begin to slowly improve.

As bad as that was, it is better than what surplus labourers will face over the next generation or two. The new AI mediated robotics will displace labourers who will have no where like America or Africa to go. There will be fewer and fewer well-paying, full-time jobs and more workers vying for these jobs. This will bid down wages/salaries and benefits for workers who can find full-time work. Many more will be initially under-employed on contract work without benefits for a short period of transition and then will be both unemployed and unemployable. This will not just be limited to unskilled workers and blue-collar workers but to many middle management and some upper management jobs too as AI replaces them. The move to digital commerce will eliminate more and more low-paying customer-service jobs and brick and mortar businesses will also eliminate workers in an attempt to stay competitive by lowering labour costs. Machines exist even today which can drive trucks and airplanes autonomously, lay brick, lay pipes, weld metal, check groceries, cook food, diagnose medical conditions, perform surgery remotely, decide whether or not someone gets insurance or a criminal gets parole, repair other robots, design and programme new machines, etc. This generation of displaced workers will have no where to go and no jobs to move into. Even if they have an entrepreneurial aptitude they will be screwed because there will be fewer and fewer wage earners to buy what they can sell. Do you now understand?

This contraction of demand for ALL labour in aggregate will lead to labour unrest on an unpresidented scale and possibly revolts or revolutions. This contraction will be like the years 1876-1877 in America or 1848 in Europe but it will be on steroids and will be permanent. Now do you understand?

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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Autonomous trucks and cars will always have an operator at the wheel.

Autonomous vehicles do not remove humans 100% from the equation. There will always be pedestrians, motorized pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

There will also be animals.

The mayor of a small town was killed when a deer struck his vehicle. No, I didn't stutter, he did not hit the deer, the deer hit him. His vehicle was rammed by a large buck, knocking his vehicle left of center at the exact moment another vehicle was in the oncoming lane. He was killed and persons in both vehicles were seriously injured.

The use of autonomous vehicles would not have altered that outcome.

You're still going to have fatalities and injuries for any number of reasons, even with the use of autonomous vehicles.

Sorry, this does not make any sense. Just because there will still be accidents, it does not mean human operators will be needed.

And on a side note, I would guess an autonomous vehicle could in near future (if not already) be more capable than human to detect an approaching large buck and perform an evasive action.
 
totally insane of course. China is paying 1 billion people far far more than they earned 30 years ago. World wages and standards of living are skyrocketing, obviously!!

China is paying about 600 million people better than in the past but the quality of life for about 500 million has remained the same more or less and it's gotten worse for about 200 million. Furthermore China's rapid growth and development is slowing (about 6% growth this year) so it will not be able to continue lifting large numbers of humanity to better living standards for too many more decades. Meanwhile labour demand and standards are dropping in Europe, North America, Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, much of the Indian sub-continent, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, etc. We are at the tipping point where the net gains of jobs are going to be surpassed by larger net losses. This will effect high income states first but will spiral down as labour standards drop.

Today most American families are worse off than similar families from the 1960's and 1970's despite most intact modern families having two wage earners rather than just one. Real wages adjusted for inflation have either stagnated or dropped for most labourers and the benefits of full-time employment have been gutted by full-time-part-time employment and contract work without benefits. The median American salary is hovering just above $ 30,000 per annum which is very low. So the argument that America is at full employment is deceptive. Labour participation rates are down, hidden and structural unemployment are up and many American workers are under-employed even though they are willing to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

This will get worse as more workers are displaced by AI mediated automation. And that revolution is here now and picking up momentum. Soon its dynamic inertia will sweep away entire labour markets and then the rocks and bottles will fly. What happens next is anyone's guess but I would bet it won't be pretty. Now do you understand why police forces are militarising and armed forces are training to wage a new kind of war in densely populated mega cities?

Cheers?
Evilroddy.
 
total insanity of course. China and india just switched 3 billion peopleto capitalism and they are booming at 8% a year. this is the exact opposite of imploding!! See why we say liberalism is based in pure ignorance? Is any other conclusion possible??

China's growth is at about 6% and Indias is about 7% but both are slowing. Worse still much of that growth is due to financial speculation and is not making it into the hands of labourers as increases in compensation for work done. Indian farmers and day labourers are committing suicide at record rates because no matter how hard or smart they work they cannot support themselves and their families without going into debt. You do not want to be in debt in India where debt-slavery is still widely practiced despite progressive legislation to ban it. India has been capitalist since the days of the Portuguese, French and British Empires but living standards for the bulk of the population have dropped consistently over the last two centuries. China has done better under state-capitalism but the economic winds are going out of its sails as labour costs and environmental concerns are making it less competitive with other Asian markets. It's a race to the bottom for labour markets and Chna is not immune from that trend despite its recent growth since the ascension of Deng Xiaoping some forty years ago.

Cheers.
Evilroddy
 
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Worse still much of that growth is due to financial speculation and is not making it into the hands of labourers

total BS of course Chinese now buy more cars than Americans so we know that capitalism is distributing wealth very well You will always look silly when arguing as a liberal.
 
China has done better under state-capitalism but the economic winds are going out of its sails

7% growth and 1 billion moved from lower class subsistence to middle class is phenomenal. See what I mean about liberalism??
 
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