'AI' to hit hardest in U.S. heartland and among less-skilled: study

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Put Joe Six Pack on Social Security Disability and call it a day.

And you think that's a smarter idea than investing in Joe Six Pack and his progeny?

Nice.

 

[Mithros]

We're talking about eliminating large swaths of human labor entirely this time, not fuzzy logic.
And while some humans might still get to enjoy a trade installing plumbing and electric, it's a sure bet that their materials might be delivered robotically, from automated factories, and that the only people able to afford to hire them will be people skilled in AI and robotics.

I know that’s what you’re talking about. I’m just saying that it’s overblown.

I mean if you have half a billion dollars then sure.... invest....don’t be left out. Buy into AI now.

But there’s a huge difference between what you see on YouTube and reality. Robotics is really hard. Most robots have a team of expensive people working long hours to keep it running in order to occasionally perform a task which could also be done by a medium skilled worker. Even if they were to succeed, the economics don’t work.

The real impact is going to be the development of robotic systems which open up entirely new manufacturing and processing techniques. They won’t take away jobs because these are tasks too precise and monotonous for humans to do, but require too much adaptation for traditional automation.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I know that’s what you’re talking about. I’m just saying that it’s overblown.

I mean if you have half a billion dollars then sure.... invest....don’t be left out. Buy into AI now.

But there’s a huge difference between what you see on YouTube and reality. Robotics is really hard. Most robots have a team of expensive people working long hours to keep it running in order to occasionally perform a task which could also be done by a medium skilled worker. Even if they were to succeed, the economics don’t work.

The real impact is going to be the development of robotic systems which open up entirely new manufacturing and processing techniques. They won’t take away jobs because these are tasks too precise and monotonous for humans to do, but require too much adaptation for traditional automation.

Did you know that the DVD manufacturing industry was convinced that a home DVD burner would be impossible, that the economics wouldn't work, and that few if any would adopt it?

If you know even the basics of optical media, there's something that is undeniable as an object lesson.
Do you know the basics about optical media? (asking for curiosity's sake)

 

[iguanaman]

If machines is sophisticated enough to take over a skilled job then they are sophisticated enough to repair other machines.

LOL No. They won't be able to fix themselves.

 

[Mithros]

Did you know that the DVD manufacturing industry was convinced that a home DVD burner would be impossible, that the economics wouldn't work, and that few if any would adopt it?

If you know even the basics of optical media, there's something that is undeniable as an object lesson.
Do you know the basics about optical media? (asking for curiosity's sake)

Depends on what you call basics. Are we talking about the basic manufacturing techniques? Composition? Encoding? Reading methodology? Fault tolerance? Information density? Bit rates? Wavelengths? Layering techniques?

But you’re right, It may be a good analogy. Digital media storage costs have followed a pretty consistent arc which has gradually enabled new applications while gradually making others irrelevant. Blockbuster was replaced by Netflix. But there was no revolution, just gradual change. Robotics is the same.

 

[PirateMk1]

I want you to try a thought experiment.
It starts with not thinking about how "I" (that means "YOU", "PirateMk1") thrives in an automated economy.
Try visualizing how "we" thrive, and by "we" I mean the vast masses of society, all levels, all walks, all flavors.

Are you pretending that every Joe Six Pack gradually becomes an "owner" of some machines?
What, do they keep them in their garage, waiting for some tech giant to stop by and rent them?
Do they spend Saturday afternoons out in front of the 3BR split level, casually wrenching away on their shiny robots?

How cute.

Are you as truly as stupid as you make out to be? I am thinking not quite.

You live in Los Angeles, people down there people are usually hustling and have a side gig or two. Same up here in Montana were somebody is doing or hustling usually lines up with the seasons instead of whole year around.

You mean to tell me Joe six pack cant own either his own business using his specialty robots, or be in a partnership with different companies doing different things like plumbing or what have you. People need things and they need services. You mean to tell me that Joe six pack cant get a piece or two of that pie? That joe six pack cant have shares of the big companies? That Joe six pack cant hustle up work for his machines, like he does today except for himself?
Is what you are saying that Joe six pack incapable adapting and overcoming and eventually thriving in a automated age. Is that what you are saying?

 

[Skeptic Bob]

It is kicking the can down the road. Eventually AI will replace almost all jobs. I love capitalism and I love AI, but the two can’t exist together forever. A painful paradigm shift is on the horizon in the coming decades.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Depends on what you call basics. Are we talking about the basic manufacturing techniques? Composition? Encoding? Reading methodology? Fault tolerance? Information density? Bit rates? Wavelengths? Layering techniques?

But you’re right, It may be a good analogy. Digital media storage costs have followed a pretty consistent arc which has gradually enabled new applications while gradually making others irrelevant. Blockbuster was replaced by Netflix. But there was no revolution, just gradual change. Robotics is the same.

No revolution but gradual change? What did the original first couple of posts talk about?
They talked about decades, changes over a ten year period.
Are you attempting to imply that it's more like fifty years?
Got news for you, EVERY YEAR IS A DECADE when it comes to high tech, so that "evolution" and "gradual change" you talked about WAS in fact, over a period of about ten years, and the original author of the thread is talking about a ten year period...IN WHICH...there will be gradual BUT REVOLUTIONARY...change.

It will be gradual, as in "over about a ten year period", but it will be "revolutionary" as in "much more drastic than anything before it". And by "anything before it", its safe to say "several orders of magnitude".

---And my tiny little contribution to all of it is: It appears that the titans of politics and economics are under the impression that the current deregulated darwinian anarcho-capitalist system we have in place today won't be a factor in causing enormous economic shocks to the system.

---There is a reason why farmers were required to put MUFFLERS on the exhaust of their agricultural equipment.
It wasn't because of noise or pollution. It was because all engines are prone to emitting either a bit of flame or sparks every so often. And those mufflers are often referred to as "spark arrestors".

We are running a major industrial economy with the headers uncorked, straight pipes, in a field of dry grass which is getting drier all the time.

I don't know how old most of you are, but sometimes I get the impression I am talking to kids, or people who have the perspective of a kid, because from where I sit, a decade is the twinkling of an eye.
Of course, even if you're an adult but you've devoted your whole life to thinking strictly in terms of next quarter performance and next quarter profits, that might ultimately force your perspective a lot and distort it such that a decade seems like forever to you, so maybe most of you ARE NOT KIDS, but instead something just as myopic.

 

[Bullseye]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...nd-and-among-less-skilled-study-idUSKCN1PI0D8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Midwestern states hit hardest by job automation in recent decades, places that were pivotal to U.S. President Donald Trump’s election, will be under the most pressure again as advances in artificial intelligence reshape the workplace, according to a new study by Brookings Institution researchers.

The spread of computer-driven technology into middle-wage jobs like trucking, construction, and office work, and some lower-skilled occupations like food preparation and service, will also further divide the fast-growing cities where skilled workers are moving and other areas, and separate the high- skilled workers whose jobs are less prone to automation from everyone else regardless of location, the study found.
====================================================
I've posted about this trend before but this new report underscores the dramatic - and negative - impact AI & robotization will have in the next 5-10 years. Unskilled workers will be impacted most severely, followed by non-college educated semi-skilled labor & professional truck drivers. The inevitable result will be a major dislocation of the work force.

In order to prepare for this, the Government should, but likely won't, establish a major network of job training centers in areas that will be most affected: the Midwest & South. See graph in article showing the extent of impact by state.

I think AI /trucking is much further down the road than 5-10 years. Self driving automobiles are barely in their infancy as yet. Food prep and service is here in some spots and will probably accelerate as the cost/benefit ratio flattens because of minimum wage hikes and job rules changes. Construction? Not sure on that one put I see some possibilities that could be exploited. Depending on the major, holding a degree may not improve one's chances for employment vs AI.


Interesting topic. Well done

 

[Bullseye]

Sitting on your butt all day and collecting universal income????

LOL, yeah, particularly when machines don't pay income tax.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

It is kicking the can down the road. Eventually AI will replace almost all jobs. I love capitalism and I love AI, but the two can’t exist together forever. A painful paradigm shift is on the horizon in the coming decades.

I don't know about you but three or four participants in this very thread appear to either believe that such can kicking is perfectly okay or they're using it as denial.

 

[Bullseye]

For starters, how about learning to fix the machines that just took your job away?

When AI gets "I" enough it'll diagnose and fix itself. With built-in redundancies a single human worker could service thousands OF AI machines.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Are you as truly as stupid as you make out to be? I am thinking not quite.

You live in Los Angeles, people down there people are usually hustling and have a side gig or two. Same up here in Montana were somebody is doing or hustling usually lines up with the seasons instead of whole year around.

You mean to tell me Joe six pack cant own either his own business using his specialty robots, or be in a partnership with different companies doing different things like plumbing or what have you. People need things and they need services. You mean to tell me that Joe six pack cant get a piece or two of that pie? That joe six pack cant have shares of the big companies? That Joe six pack cant hustle up work for his machines, like he does today except for himself?
Is what you are saying that Joe six pack incapable adapting and overcoming and eventually thriving in a automated age. Is that what you are saying?

Hate to break it to you but robotics ain't cattle, so as much as it might shock you, it is not like just rounding up a few heads of cattle and going to market. By the way, did you miss the last few decades when the small family farm was almost completely eradicated and replaced by huge corporate concerns?

And, the people down in Los Angeles who have "a side gig or two" are the ones struggling to keep their heads above water, and it's not just L.A. either, try San Jose, you know, Silicon Valley?

You mentioned "plumbing" as some kind of partnership, and Joe Six Pack "hustling up work for his machines".
Are YOU as innocent and naive as to think that some guy with a high school education and a tiny 1200 sq. ft. home with a $1800-$2800/mo mortage/rent in a vast sprawl of never ending megalopolis suburbia is suddenly capable of investing in equipment which costs as much as a brand new car on the low end and more than his house on the higher end is a reality?

Here's the reality, take it or leave it: Advanced robotics equipment is purchased and owned by huge corporate conglomerates.
Oftentimes the corporate conglomerate is the one manufacturing the equipment, and they are the ones leasing it out.
Joe Six Pack in L.A. is lucky if he can get a job (most likely an "independent contractor gig" with no benefits or security) doing the warehousing and basic maintenance on these rigs. If he's well trained, he gets to program them. He might also be transporting and installing them.

Have you ever BEEN to Los Angeles? How about Tokyo? Or any of the mega-cities, which by the way DWARF L.A. in both size and population?

The Joe Six Packs of the coming age might be lucky enough to get jobs assembling or programming these rigs but most of them will NOT be "small owners" as if they're running a small fleet of taxicabs, unless of course they are automated taxicabs.
There's a possibility, maybe...if the huge corporate concerns like Uber and Lyft don't drown him out and lobby for new regulations which lock Joe out of the markets.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

When AI gets "I" enough it'll diagnose and fix itself. With built-in redundancies a single human worker could service thousands OF AI machines.

We're not talking about software only. Self repairing hardware IS one of the things that ISN'T ten years down the road.
Self-repairing machines, which in reality are the beginning of self reproducing machines, ARE something visualized in the 22nd century, long after even our kids are dead.

And in any case, that single human worker servicing thousands of pieces of equipment is the crux of the thread, because technological unemployment means potentially thirty five percent of the population being out of work.

 

[Skeptic Bob]

I don't know about you but three or four participants in this very thread appear to either believe that such can kicking is perfectly okay or they're using it as denial.

View attachment 67249505

We seem to be kicking the can in multiple important issues. We have adopted a policy of procrastination.

 

[Bullseye]

Hate to break it to you but robotics ain't cattle, so as much as it might shock you, it is not like just rounding up a few heads of cattle and going to market. By the way, did you miss the last few decades when the small family farm was almost completely eradicated and replaced by huge corporate concerns?

And, the people down in Los Angeles who have "a side gig or two" are the ones struggling to keep their heads above water, and it's not just L.A. either, try San Jose, you know, Silicon Valley?

You mentioned "plumbing" as some kind of partnership, and Joe Six Pack "hustling up work for his machines".
Are YOU as innocent and naive as to think that some guy with a high school education and a tiny 1200 sq. ft. home with a $1800-$2800/mo mortage/rent in a vast sprawl of never ending megalopolis suburbia is suddenly capable of investing in equipment which costs as much as a brand new car on the low end and more than his house on the higher end is a reality?

Here's the reality, take it or leave it: Advanced robotics equipment is purchased and owned by huge corporate conglomerates.
Oftentimes the corporate conglomerate is the one manufacturing the equipment, and they are the ones leasing it out.
Joe Six Pack in L.A. is lucky if he can get a job (most likely an "independent contractor gig" with no benefits or security) doing the warehousing and basic maintenance on these rigs. If he's well trained, he gets to program them. He might also be transporting and installing them.

Have you ever BEEN to Los Angeles? How about Tokyo? Or any of the mega-cities, which by the way DWARF L.A. in both size and population?

The Joe Six Packs of the coming age might be lucky enough to get jobs assembling or programming these rigs but most of them will NOT be "small owners" as if they're running a small fleet of taxicabs, unless of course they are automated taxicabs.
There's a possibility, maybe...if the huge corporate concerns like Uber and Lyft don't drown him out and lobby for new regulations which lock Joe out of the markets.

I don't think the whole issue is super scale robotics. We're seeing kiosk level services that take the place of people showing up in several areas. Everything from getting bordering passes to board planes that have your TSA status on them, to getting a burger and fries at a fast food restaurant. I'm planning a short visit to Las Vegas in March. Got an email today from the hotel telling me to download their app and log on; when I arrive the bellman swipes the app and knows were to deliver our luggage and app creates a virtual key to access our room. Admittedly simplistic examples, but the simple and common tasks are frequently the first to modernize. Maybe next time there will be a self-propelled luggage cart that reads my key and shows up at my room door without human interference.


I have my doubts over the forecast extent of job takeover in the short time predicted, but I think we're going to see a lot of progress in that direction in the next 5-10 years.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

My daughter is a very experienced and highly skilled cosmetologist and stylist at a very high end male hair salon. Most of her clients pull up in cars that cost more than your houses, or at least as much as them.

Separate out the day traders, poor little rich boy trust fund babies, actors, attorneys and doctors, and you're left with a lot of software engineers, CEO's or upper middle management, designers, real estate investors, etc.

Know what a lot of them talk about? Redundancy, downsizing, offshoring, technological unemployment, and at the core of it, AI. They don't ever talk about the coming democratization of robotics where "every ordinary man is now an ownership partner". If they did, if such a thing ever came up, even once, I assure you I'd be hearing about it, because she loves to share a fair bit of the stuff that happens.
And it wouldn't come up just once, because suddenly ALL of them would be talking about it, because something like that spreads like a brush fire.

High tech is often DISRUPTIVE, and democratization of high tech, when it happens, is also often very disruptive.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I don't think the whole issue is super scale robotics. We're seeing kiosk level services that take the place of people showing up in several areas. Everything from getting bordering passes to board planes that have your TSA status on them, to getting a burger and fries at a fast food restaurant. I'm planning a short visit to Las Vegas in March. Got an email today from the hotel telling me to download their app and log on; when I arrive the bellman swipes the app and knows were to deliver our luggage and app creates a virtual key to access our room. Admittedly simplistic examples, but the simple and common tasks are frequently the first to modernize. Maybe next time there will be a self-propelled luggage cart that reads my key and shows up at my room door without human interference.


I have my doubts over the forecast extent of job takeover in the short time predicted, but I think we're going to see a lot of progress in that direction in the next 5-10 years.

But guys like Pirate seem to be predicting that some high school educated shlub living in the outskirts of Vegas in a ****-box 2BR apartment is going to be the one that OWNS a "herd" of those robotic bellmen who delivers your luggage.

Yeah, he keeps them in the carport next to his 2002 Hyundai Elantra, the one that is running on three out of four cylinders and has a bald left front tire, and when he's not juggling with his "other gig" as a Walmart stock guy he's out in the carport with his "oil can" and a monkey wrench.

And we're supposed to duplicate that by several thousand in our minds. Those gi-normous Vegas hotels depending on all those lovely people, stopping by their carports to pick up their robots every day.

"Thank you, Mister Shlub, we couldn't do it without you!"

Pffffttt, if Mr. Shlub is lucky, he gets to be the guy who makes sure that the software is up to date every day on all of them, and he's a 1099 indy contractor who does it from his crappy tablet for $150 a week part time, and the robotic bellmen are owned by the hotel corporation.

I don't understand how millions of people can be duped into thinking that there's some kind of "Oklahoma Homesteader" land grab coming up for the masses. That's not how today's economy works. Today's economy is designed as a tool to serve the elite top oligarchs, and to enrich them, not the little people who wear the hair nets and name tags.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I have my doubts over the forecast extent of job takeover in the short time predicted, but I think we're going to see a lot of progress in that direction in the next 5-10 years.

That smells like a contradiction in the same sentence. The whole thread is predicated on a ten year time frame.
Ten years is "evolutionary scale" in high tech.

Are you familiar with Moore's Law? You might be. I realize that even Moore's Law is not open ended but still...

 

[jmotivator]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...nd-and-among-less-skilled-study-idUSKCN1PI0D8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Midwestern states hit hardest by job automation in recent decades, places that were pivotal to U.S. President Donald Trump’s election, will be under the most pressure again as advances in artificial intelligence reshape the workplace, according to a new study by Brookings Institution researchers.

The spread of computer-driven technology into middle-wage jobs like trucking, construction, and office work, and some lower-skilled occupations like food preparation and service, will also further divide the fast-growing cities where skilled workers are moving and other areas, and separate the high- skilled workers whose jobs are less prone to automation from everyone else regardless of location, the study found.
====================================================
I've posted about this trend before but this new report underscores the dramatic - and negative - impact AI & robotization will have in the next 5-10 years. Unskilled workers will be impacted most severely, followed by non-college educated semi-skilled labor & professional truck drivers. The inevitable result will be a major dislocation of the work force.

In order to prepare for this, the Government should, but likely won't, establish a major network of job training centers in areas that will be most affected: the Midwest & South. See graph in article showing the extent of impact by state.

I think they're called "colleges" and "trade schools".

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I think they're called "colleges" and "trade schools".

You are absolutely right, and they're going to have to become a LOT MORE AFFORDABLE for the typical mope to afford them.
We have a task before us. We have to be ready and able to train an entire generation coming up with these new skills, and retrain those who will be displaced as well.

 

[Mithros]

No revolution but gradual change? What did the original first couple of posts talk about?
They talked about decades, changes over a ten year period.
Are you attempting to imply that it's more like fifty years?
Got news for you, EVERY YEAR IS A DECADE when it comes to high tech, so that "evolution" and "gradual change" you talked about WAS in fact, over a period of about ten years, and the original author of the thread is talking about a ten year period...IN WHICH...there will be gradual BUT REVOLUTIONARY...change.

It will be gradual, as in "over about a ten year period", but it will be "revolutionary" as in "much more drastic than anything before it". And by "anything before it", its safe to say "several orders of magnitude".

---And my tiny little contribution to all of it is: It appears that the titans of politics and economics are under the impression that the current deregulated darwinian anarcho-capitalist system we have in place today won't be a factor in causing enormous economic shocks to the system.

---There is a reason why farmers were required to put MUFFLERS on the exhaust of their agricultural equipment.
It wasn't because of noise or pollution. It was because all engines are prone to emitting either a bit of flame or sparks every so often. And those mufflers are often referred to as "spark arrestors".

We are running a major industrial economy with the headers uncorked, straight pipes, in a field of dry grass which is getting drier all the time.

I don't know how old most of you are, but sometimes I get the impression I am talking to kids, or people who have the perspective of a kid, because from where I sit, a decade is the twinkling of an eye.
Of course, even if you're an adult but you've devoted your whole life to thinking strictly in terms of next quarter performance and next quarter profits, that might ultimately force your perspective a lot and distort it such that a decade seems like forever to you, so maybe most of you ARE NOT KIDS, but instead something just as myopic.

You’re right, the powers to be don’t have much of a clue about the challenges and capabilities robotics and automation will have. Neither do most industry leaders, the general public, or even many academics. But, build enough autonomous systems over enough years for enough applications and I’d at least hope that I’d pick up a thing or two.


I think generalities make it easy to talk past each other. Why don’t we pick a single industry or application. Then it’s easier to concretely discuss time tables, effects, etc.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

You’re right, the powers to be don’t have much of a clue about the challenges and capabilities robotics and automation will have. Neither do most industry leaders, the general public, or even many academics. But, build enough autonomous systems over enough years for enough applications and I’d at least hope that I’d pick up a thing or two.


I think generalities make it easy to talk past each other. Why don’t we pick a single industry or application. Then it’s easier to concretely discuss time tables, effects, etc.

Wow, you're awesome. More of that please.

Okay hotel-motel. I think the automated bellbots are just the tip of the iceberg and that ten years from now bots will also be cleaning hotel rooms and doing ordinary janitorial maintenance. There will still be some human staff but only on the periphery.
Bedmaking, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, are all tasks that a handful of advanced bots can take over, with a human being doing followup and supervision.

I think that automation will also become a very important part of food prep, starting first on the institutional level and fast food.

 

[Mithros]

Wow, you're awesome. More of that please.


Okay hotel-motel. I think the automated bellbots are just the tip of the iceberg and that ten years from now bots will also be cleaning hotel rooms and doing ordinary janitorial maintenance. There will still be some human staff but only on the periphery.
Bedmaking, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, are all tasks that a handful of advanced bots can take over, with a human being doing followup and supervision.


I think that automation will also become a very important part of food prep, starting first on the institutional level and fast food.

Those are two awesome examples that are both wonderfully counterintuitive.


Food prep is a good one. There isn’t a lot of buzz behind it yet, but it makes a lot of sense. Fast food jobs don’t pay enough to provide a living wage and the product doesn’t support the prices required to provide a living wage. The preparation is also simple motions that are very consistent and well defined. I could see a Big Mac being made in a ford assembly line today. The real effort would be getting the costs down and reliability up.... and the hmi for the customer. You’re not going to need a ton of additional sensing or adaptation beyond traditional automation to get there.


But even then, the economics are non trivial. Automating an entire kitchen is probably cost prohibitive. Hardware alone would run you million(s?) plus integration and maintenance. So I’d first look to small single manipulator compact units that are more akin to a fast food truck or kiosk. I’d say you’d need 10-50 units before the whole thing becomes revenue neutral (though that’s just a back of the envelope)


House cleaning is a completely different story. That will be one of the last things to be automated, if ever. At this point no one is even remotely close. The problem is orders of magnitude more complex than flipping burgers. Manipulation is extremely difficult, especially when you’re dealing with objects that deform. Try to imagine computing a mathematical model of a shirt that reacts to picking it up and moving it, and then try to morph that model that onto a shirt laying in a pile of clothes so you can predict where you need to grasp it to begin folding.


Economically, even though you’re also dealing with lower paying jobs it’s totally different from a fast food setting. Instead of many consumers interacting with a single robot, you’re talking about robots as an appliance. Even with the rosiest glasses you’re almost certainly looking at 100k+/robot if it were even possible. That’s too much for a single consumer.

Obviously robot vacuums are here now, but improving them is going to be tough. Cordless vacuums aren’t all that great and dragging around a tether (cord) is a huge complexity. And there’s also a paradox here, as the more capable you make a robot the more susceptible it is to exhibiting adverse emergent behaviors.

 

[Mithros]

Wow, you're awesome. More of that please.

Okay hotel-motel. I think the automated bellbots are just the tip of the iceberg and that ten years from now bots will also be cleaning hotel rooms and doing ordinary janitorial maintenance. There will still be some human staff but only on the periphery.
Bedmaking, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, are all tasks that a handful of advanced bots can take over, with a human being doing followup and supervision.

I think that automation will also become a very important part of food prep, starting first on the institutional level and fast food.

After more thought, let me revise the housekeeping robot... In a hotel, maybe eventually?... assuming you designed the hotel rooms to be “robot friendly” and had a human to augment the robot. But idk, it’s still close. We’re not talking about replacing expensive labor so there’s a limited budget and it costs a hell of a lot to engineer robots that can safely interact with squishy humans.