

What Undercover Boss and The Jetsons Tell Us About the Future of Jobs - wikiburner
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/27/researchers_claim_many_jobs_at_risk_for_automation_here_s_what_they_missed.html

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_random_
My suggestion for the brand: "touched by humans".

"Genuine Food - touched by humans". "Authentic Underwear - touched by humans".

Robots don't spit in coffee. Robots don't under-cook your burger when they
have an ambition crisis. Robots sew neat seams.

~~~
oneweekwonder
"Robots will need to defend the one percent, when the ambition of the masses
has turned into a pit of despair, like a animal trapped in a corner with no
where to go and nothing to lose."

------
bsenftner
This is the future of automation:
[http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

All you need is software that determines what needs to be done, and a minimum
wage work force wearing headsets to receive task commands to carry out. Short
circuits the need for ANY advancements in AI to enslave entire social classes.

I would love this to be wrong.

~~~
lgieron
I think the story got it wrong - that it's the "thinking" that is harder to
automate (as opposed to "doing"). Once we have AI capable of managing a fast
food restaurant, the workers will probably be long gone anyway (replaced by
robots).

~~~
waps
Having done some automation with actual robots, I must disagree. Determining
what needs doing is a policy problem. Sure there may be variables, but it
seems to me essentially you have a priority list, a list of workers and other
resources, and essentially a bucket fill algorithm. Further enhancement might
be to verify that the store is actually operational during all the different
times (e.g. at 6pm, refill the fries before you do the cash register counting,
even though the cash register stuff is more important in the end). Add to that
that you can make significant mistakes and not have real consequences. In fact
you could screw up a few things and still have better overall results than a
human planner. And manna like planners are pretty normal in

Doesn't sound like it's a huge problem to me.

Having a 3 segment robot arm pick up a salt shaker requires balancing 7
codependent feedback loops, while constantly checking if you're hitting
anything and requires constant evaluation of forward and inverse kinematics.
As if that problem is not bad enough, you have to do it not just fast, but in
real-time (as in, you have to calculate all this at ~50hz at least. If a
single decision takes 100 msec, you've just damaged or lost the robot). State
of the art in robotics is picking up and unboiled egg 10 times without
breaking it, and most robots can't do it. If you start to use those robots to
hand people burgers, expect broken bones at least, casualties at worst.

Replacing a burger flipper requires solving not one, but actually most
unsolved AI problems. You need voice recognition + understanding. Okay that's
one. Then you need to understand the meaning in what was actually said. You
know, the problem that google's 35000 employees from amongst the "world's
best" don't quite know how to solve. I mean, they're far ahead of the pack,
but nowhere near open-ended conversations with a human, never mind doing so
with social grace. If your robot can walk around you need to manage an
unsolved 30-dimensional feedback loop problem. State of the art for that
problem is pathetic as well[1][2]. If it can't walk around you have other
problems, and it's still at least a 14-dimensional feedback problem (two six-
dimensional arms + 2 grippers). There's the mechanical problem of creating a
robot that stays robust when working with "gooey" stuff like food (it will
build up inside the robot, then fail or cause overheating). Then you need to
solve all the problems that the "manna" system solves, or there's no point
having a robot in the first place.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjgkV77gVcs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjgkV77gVcs)
(note the obviously reduced dimensionality that wouldn't fly in the real
world, and that the robot sees no problem moving through itself. It's
stability under disturbances is also not at the point that it would keep
operating for long periods. Do that in real life and the thing will topple
over) [2] And before you say Bigdog, note that 4 feet locomotion is a much
simpler problem. Bigdog is solving for 8 dimensions, and that's state of the
art (and it is not sufficiently reliable to operate a single day without
assistance). 2 feet locomotion in a human is ~140-dimensional, the minimum you
can reduce it to while still having a nice mobile robot is 12-dimensional.

------
bgilroy26
A large volume of the jobs that are being automated are are invented with
computers in mind.

The more stringent accounting standards that were created over the last 20
years would have led to the demand for thousands upon thousands of white
collar workers, if we still kept books and records the way we did in 1910.

On the other hand, companies would not have been able to grow large enough to
need new accounting standards in the first place, if not for the productivity
increases since the introduction of the computer.

~~~
d4nt
What's more, there would be a lot fewer people around if computers weren't
helping us grow food, generate energy, cure diseases and move everything
around just in time. The more I think about it, the more I think computers are
a sort of virus and we're in a symbiotic relationship with them.

~~~
crpatino
The revolution, discovery of fossil fuels and antibiotics, international
trade, etc, were all widespread before the invention of computers. You could
argue that operations research (a branch of applied math that deals with
logistics mostly) has evolved concurrently with computer technology, but the
former has one or two decades of a head start in terms of adoption by private
enterprises.

I think it's more like computers allows us to do the same stuff faster and at
a broader scale, but it has had little impact so far in which stuff do we
choose to do.

------
jedberg
I'm one of those people that prefer automation

I'll actually wait slightly longer for the automated checkout at the market,
mainly because I want to see it in more places.

~~~
greeneggs
Do you mean self checkout (manual checkout)? I've never heard of automated
checkout, but that would be amazing!

~~~
JamesArgo
It's possible with RFID. Just not cheap enough yet.

~~~
gutnor
They put RFID in one way underground ticket now. The time it is cheap enough
to include everywhere is coming fast.

However, I'm not quite sure that will be enough for shops to automate. The
problem for shop is that an automated system most likely cause of failure is
to miss items. That added to the likely need to remove some security features
to simplify automation and the already existing shoplifting problem means shop
owner will be more interested in more clever (read more obnoxious) self
checkout system than automated ones.

------
jmcdonald-ut
The belief that the future will be this dark and gloomy place where one
struggles to find work is understandable. Certainly there are things that can
indicate this is right. Manufacturing is becoming more heavily automated for
example.

I think that we will see a period in the coming years that could be regarded
as a "growing pain" for the human species. Jobs and professions could shift to
be more inline with rapidly advancing technologies. During this time there
will probably be people who find themselves either out of work, or
unqualified. After this time I think that jobs and professions will again be
available and that many people will be qualified for them. Perhaps even more
jobs.

Who knows, maybe I'm an optimist.

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
> After this time I think that jobs and professions will again be available
> and that many people will be qualified for them. Perhaps even more jobs.

Like what?

The problem is that we're creeping up the capability ladder, and it will only
be a few decades until the robots can do the math, science, design,
engineering, and assembly of new robots, which can in turn produce any other
objects.

What's there for humans to do?

The real problem is that robotics makes humans unnecessary for economies to
function, and we'll need to change our social model to account for that.

Or just let a huge swathe of the people starve.

------
agilebyte
> I can imagine, for example, that "made (or served) by humans" could be the
> "organic" or "fair trade" of the future.

Actually, I would see it the other way round, on one condition. If people had
a guaranteed income (or housing, healthcare & food) then paying humans to do
work that robots can do would seem like an unnecessary luxury to me.

~~~
a3n
There will be three jobs in the future: quants, CEOs that employ the quants,
and members of Congress. Everyone else will be lazy good for nothing takers
for not having a non-existent job and deserve nothing more than to starve in
the gutter. At least, that's how it's going to be in the US.

~~~
sliverstorm
Quants don't create value, so without a healthy market a quant is powerless.
Like a swimmer trying to swim in a dried-out lakebed. Thus the CEOs that
employ the quants are also powerless.

~~~
saosebastiao
I know tons of quants that create value. They just don't work in finance.

------
stephengillie
_47 percent of U.S. jobs are “at risk” of being automated in the next 20
years._

The other way to look at this, of course, is:

 _47 percent of our labor force will be freed from their menial tasks._

Our societies will collectively be able to produce and accomplish almost
double what we currently can.

~~~
lazerwalker
That sort of outlook implies a government and populace that's willing to
embrace something resembling a functioning socialist state, rather than merely
letting the "freed" labor force live in abject poverty. Based on the current
political climate in the U.S., I'm highly skeptical such a thing would happen.

~~~
stephengillie
No, it implies some of them will become entrepreneurs and hire some of the
others. And that some costs will go down from this newfound efficiency.

You'll never convince me that Luddism is a progressive policy.

~~~
gutnor
Once one job has been automated away, all the people that were doing it need a
_realistic_ reconversion plan. A farm worker can convert easily into a factory
worker, but cannot learn mandarin, software engineering or whatever overnight.
(not even taking into account the legal challenge to convert. Whatever
happens, if my job go to China, I will have massive legal hard time to follow
it)

Europe and the US have been historically bad at that. Europe hides those
workers in "pre-pension" (loads of steel/mine worker get their state pension
around 45), "long term unemployment"; US hides them in various disability
assistance program. (source: there was an article here I think a few months
back)

Luddism want basically to stop progress in order to keep people employed,
which was stupid 100 years ago, and is stupid now. GP on the other hand
suggest to embrace the changes but accept some/lot people will need
assistance.

------
surrealize
> I can imagine, for example, that “made (or served) by humans” could be the
> “organic” or “fair trade” of the future.

... or the "handmade" of the future?

~~~
svantana
I find this quote ironic. One of the main purposes of fairtrade is to avoid
poor working conditions (for humans). If a particular brand of coffee was
produced without any human labor, that could probably be considered fairtrade.

------
joe_the_user
The only way that automation works is through creating a highly controlled
environment where production can proceed in a predictable fashion.

The only way to have a completely automated restaurant is have a big box that
spits out meals. The alternative is no automation or a lot of little boxes
that are used for pieces.

The thing is that a restaurant would still needs counter-help and clean-up
help so further. Let's assume the box reduces the cost of prep-labor by 50%.
That reduces the labor past of your costs by 25% and your total costs by 12.5%
assuming labor is 50% of costs. So it's a good savings but not an astronomical
savings. But the counter-weight you have sell people on buying the food that
comes out of the box. A few places compete on price alone but that's hard.
Just consider that restaurants are already competing with microwave dinners in
the frozen section that quite possibly are already spat out of a better,
cleverer box at a central factory. It would seem restaurants compete on
ambiance and human relations and a 12.5% prices savings might not compensate.

Another thing about "food out of a box" restaurant is that the box might not
have the flexibility of a human preparer. If you need to change your menu, you
might find you have to do expensive retooling on your box rather than a quick
retraining of your employees. If you have to close a given restaurant, you may
find no one wants your box. You may find yourself more dependent on your small
number of box-technicians than you were previously on a large number of easily
replaced unskilled cooks and so-forth.

The thing is that humans are a fabulous deal once you remove the price
differential. Human comes with amazing skills, often train themselves with
more, supervise and trouble-shoot each other, require little capital
investment and manufacture themselves. This kind of thing is a good deal for
nearly everything except production at a large scale (and the most important
items, cars and iphones, are going to that large scale). The only unfortunate
thing from the buyers perspective is that humans have a nasty habit of expect
a share of the output instead of just a bare wage. But the solution to that
problem is visible all around us ... humans.

~~~
svantana
> a restaurant would still needs counter-help and clean-up help so further

Why do you assume that those tasks won't be automated? To some extent they
already are in some places (kiosk ordering at some fast food places, cleaning
devices à la Roomba).

~~~
joe_the_user
I assume these can't be automated easily because they involve dealing with a
complex, unpredictable environment. AI has gotten there, hasn't really gotten
closer.

Roomba's are really slow. There's no robot that can quickly find and clean a
spill _while keep people around the area safe_. That kind of progress hasn't
been made with robots and AI.

You can have something like a system where the restaurant is a big box that
cleaned automatically, yes, but then it also becomes unpleasant. Kiosk
ordering might work but then cashier is also the "public face" of restaurant.

It all comes down to "why do people go to restaurants instead of microwaving
Trader Joe's stuff", right?

