
Ask HN: How to realistically prepare for the robotization of the U.S.? - wturner
So their is a huge swath of automation coming down the pike. Automated cars, automated work force, video based education.<p>Many of these things still require human input although we&#x27;ve set ourselves up so that people don&#x27;t get paid or paid very little (an example is Google translate which Jaron Lanier likes to use as an example).<p>I&#x27;m curious what insight people here have to mitigate being a victim of all of this. I know customer service jobs and the like will always be available but those are low paying and require a certain personality type. Mainly upbeat and happy...all the time. We seem to be moving toward a lack-of-a-middle class society. I am still convinced there are enclaves that will be well paying that don&#x27;t require an MIT degree or a customer service personality that borders on senility. So feel free to respond.That is all.
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Zigurd
The real question is "What do we do when we are forced to acknowledge that a
free market in labor doesn't work?"

Most of us reading this live in a bubble. We work at things that are, for now,
very hard to automate. Employers bid up our wages. We may even tell ourselves
that smart people are always in demand. It won't always be this way.

How will your brain be valued when prosthetic brains can make all those
dullards you look down on now smarter than the un-assisted you? Will the poets
with minds that (still) can't be artificially be boosted start pitying you and
giving you free advice that you should have become more creative?

One of the biggest challenges for all us smarties will be to try to imagine
ourselves on the outs, and to imagine economic systems very different from the
one we have now.

~~~
wturner
"One of the biggest challenges for all us smarties will be to try to imagine
ourselves on the outs, and to imagine economic systems very different from the
one we have now."

I already know what that's like. If any of the 'smarties' are writing an
anthropological fucking study on the cave people of U.S. society just ask. lol

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benhohner
I believe even customer service jobs are not immune to technological
unemployment. I see no reason why a modernized automat couldn't replace most
of the food service industry. And why couldn't an upgraded Siri replace most
customer support workers?

The problem is when company owners replace human laborers with computerized
laborers. CEOs are the ones who see the profits from the increased efficiency
and the employees see nothing. This seems fine in a free market system yet if
we follow through to the end game, we find incredibly efficient companies
owned by a few people, with no human employees. If nobody is employed except
CEOs, who will have money to buy their products? Robots can't buy stuff (yet)!

I believe the only solution is to pay people for robot labor. This may seem
counter-intuitive, but when society has no income, there's nobody to buy the
goods your robots have so diligently created.

Two solutions I've come up with are either a guaranteed minimum income or
robot labor profit sharing.

An example of robot labor profit sharing is forming a union of "robot
laborers" in which human employees invest in robots and receive the profits
their robots generate. It would essentially be employees outsourcing their
work to robots and receiving the profits.

One thing is certain. If we don't make significant progress on this solution,
in favor of society as a whole, economic inequality will continue to increase
until our economy breaks.

I am deeply interested in this topic and would love to hear from anyone who is
working to find a solution to this problem.

~~~
wturner
I was asking based on the assumption that social, cultural or 'institutional'
solutions are not going to happen and that individuals are on their own.

~~~
benhohner
As an individual? I'd suggest researching the hardest problems for computer AI
to solve, then picking a career in one of those areas. Generally any area to
do with creativity and the human condition should remain viable for a long
time. Luckily, programming and design should remain relevant for quite a
while.

~~~
wturner
Creativity huh? Like music? j/k

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esw
My recommended mitigation strategy would be to stick to things that computers
do badly, and save as much money as possible. If someone asked me to pick a
(potentially) lucrative career that won't be replaced by robots or computers
in the next 50 years, I'd tell them to go to culinary school.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Except that it's not at all lucrative.

~~~
esw
I'm not talking about line cooks. I'm talking about executive and personal
chefs. I know several, and they all make high five to low six figures.

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mark_l_watson
Full disclosure: I am probably too optimistic re: AI (in 1982 I put an AAAI
bumper sticker "Artificial Intelligence: it is For Real" on my car :-)

I think that not only in the USA, but in most developed countries that within
10 years robots will be doing a lot of routine physical jobs like stocking
shelves, farming, flipping burgers, etc. Lots of white collar knowledge
workers will be partially displaced also.

Preparation: favor jobs like management, very high tech, nursing, etc. that
are more difficult to replace.

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CityFarms
1\. Provide for your own i.e. grow your own food and customize your own
manufacturing. 2\. Develop a strong ethic of value add to your interactions
with other people. 3\. Empower,not just encourage, other individuals to be
creative rather than consumptive, thus generating freedom and accountability.

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naknation
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2014/02/18...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/wp/2014/02/18/some-predict-computers-will-produce-a-jobless-future-
heres-why-theyre-wrong/)

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eru
[http://www.economist.com/node/21552897](http://www.economist.com/node/21552897)
might be relevant. (Pay-walled.)

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lacker
Learn robotics.

