Jobs in the future

[Krato]

I recently watched a video on CA and it was explaining the exponential growth of computing power of our technology. Well, what is society going to be like in 40 years? So many jobs will be managed by pc's that perhaps society could crumble. I mean think of any job, odds are there is going to be some sort of program or automatic machine that can perform the same job better then a person. Then what does that jobless person do? how do they earn a living? I can honestly only think of two potentially safe jobs, prostitution and art.

Plus if you cut out the middle class in society the country becomes much more fragile.

I know its a pointless thread, but i want to know what other people think about the possible future and what jobs would likely be the last to be untouched more or less.


thanks

[nonameowns]

in future, more engineers will be demanded. Along in building, science, computers, and shit. While artists probably stay the same or decline..

[Elwell]

In your scenario, what makes you think art is a safe job?

[Krato]

Originally Posted by Elwell

In your scenario, what makes you think art is a safe job?

well, i cant really see a computer designing people, book covers, etc. I mean perhaps its possible, but that would require a computer to be not only intelligent but creative. Plus i assume the entertainment industry is going to keep growing so there will hopefully be more jobs, or still jobs available for working artists.

What do you think will happen?

[Derek the Usurper]

Originally Posted by Krato

well, i cant really see a computer designing people, book covers, etc. I mean perhaps its possible, but that would require a computer to be not only intelligent but creative. Plus i assume the entertainment industry is going to keep growing so there will hopefully be more jobs, or still jobs available for working artists.

What do you think will happen?

According to Ray Kurzweil, we will have reverse engineered the human brain into similarly powerful computers in under 10 years from now. If we successfully do that, I don't see how the computer wouldn't be able to design art.

This change in computing will be universal though, so no job would be safe. We will likely turn into the unemployed fat people from WALL-E.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Krato

I can honestly only think of two potentially safe jobs, prostitution and art.

No android sexbots? I'm sorry, but that's a future I just don't want to live in.

And if we have computer-robot-machines to do every job... why exactly do we need jobs?

[Elwell]

Originally Posted by Krato

Plus i assume the entertainment industry is going to keep growing so there will hopefully be more jobs, or still jobs available for working artists.

So how does societal collapse and massive unemployment lead to a growing entertainment industry? Last time I looked, the entertainment industries in say, Afghanistan or Somalia weren't doing so well.

[vineris]

I'm pretty sure AI research is still quite a ways away from getting anything even close to real intelligence or the human brain. However, things like data mining and image processing algorithms are getting pretty good, so I can see putting computers to work on making ads and book covers. You wouldn't need creativity, just a big database of stock images and a data miner that told you what the elements of the most successful book covers were. Then you could have a machine churn them out the way Hollywood churns out bad action movies.

You might even get programs to analyze the text of the book and correlate it to tags in the photos. One of my friends was working on a program that would scan large numbers of news articles and pick out the names of hockey players based on which words appeared in the articles.

Personally, I think we're all going to go back to keeping chickens in the backyard while the computers do business.

[Krato]

Originally Posted by Elwell

So how does societal collapse and massive unemployment lead to a growing entertainment industry? Last time I looked, the entertainment industries in say, Afghanistan or Somalia weren't doing so well.

haha true true, but what i meant is that people are getting more and more familiar with technology thus video games, movies, desgined computers, etc. Also historically in the united states when there is a depression people flock to the theaters and also games (i figure) so they can escape reality more or less.

[yoitisi]

Originally Posted by Derek the Usurper

According to Ray Kurzweil, we will have reverse engineered the human brain into similarly powerful computers in under 10 years from now...

Uhm, as long as you're aware that similar predictions have been made 10 years ago already. It turned out to be a little bit more complex than initially thought

[Krato]

perhaps they will come upon a barrier which will temporarily halt, or completely stop progress. Hell.. maybe there will be almost no scientific progress except MJONIR armor, spaceships, and cortana for the next 500 years.. sorta like halo.

[Derek the Usurper]

Originally Posted by yoitisi

Uhm, as long as you're aware that similar predictions have been made 10 years ago already. It turned out to be a little bit more complex than initially thought

Kurzweil's prediction of the technological singularity is based upon Moore's law and observed constant exponential growth of technology. As far as I know, any similar prediction from other futurists, or from hard science fiction, didn't have the same sort of statistical evidence to support it's possibility. Advanced AI is just a really small part of the overall singularity prediction, and it's not predicted to be in any set form.

[zwarrior]

The Entertainment industry was doing great during the Great Depression... people found solace in movie theatres and comic books as a way to escape reality. arguably, Superhero comics such as Superman would not have ever been as succesful in any other era.

And Krato is right, jobs that require some sort of creative input and human cognition; entertainment, advertising, business, doctors, lawyers etc. are a lot more secure than say blue collar jobs like working in a factory pushing buttons. In fact most of the people left working in factories are for Machine maintenance. Minimum wage jobs that require almost no human input to perform will be the first to be replaced by machines.

[BuckWeisel]

We have the tech to have automated assembly lines and other jobs that can be replaced by machines. The problem is cost. It sounds like a great idea to replace all your employees with robots that can work 24/7, but it's unbelievably expensive. Until robotics become extremely cheap, you won't have a mass shift in the workforce from human to nonhuman. I don't see this happening anytime soon due to the level of skill and education it takes to design/build/ and repair robotics. Factories already pay Plant Engineers upwards of $40 an hour just to sit around and fix manual machinery, imagine what you'd have to pay someone with the know how to fix robots.

As for the being replaced by computers part, computers still need instruction. There needs to be someone telling the computers what to do. While you might have a few jobs here or there eliminated by going full electronic, there will be a need for a human until we get good and cheap AI.

The thing I worry about, at least for art, is the increasing number of short cuts a person can take with a computer. I heard an example from someone about the fully CGI Arnold in Terminator: Salvation. In the future, you will have a digital catalog of every actor/actress. Sort of like how Poser has a variety of models. Voice recognition and sound emulation software will eliminate the need for voice overs. Pre-made and incredibly simple animation tools makes it easy for people to skip learning animation. So you'll have people at home that can make full length movies with their favorite actors with nothing more than a computer.

Instead of a theater you'll have a YouTube type experience where you go in, and pick who's movie you'd like to watch.

What would happen to production art in a similar future, I don't know. It will be interesting to find out though.

[Pigeonkill]

I reminds me of the movie irobot. Where basically not many jobs left for humans at all. Jobs that I think would still kind of remain open...maybe medical fields or religious occupations?

Job field that should spike like crazy as robots roam the earth. Hackers and programmers.

[Elwell]

Originally Posted by Derek the Usurper

Kurzweil's prediction of the technological singularity is based upon Moore's law and observed constant exponential growth of technology. As far as I know, any similar prediction from other futurists, or from hard science fiction, didn't have the same sort of statistical evidence to support it's possibility. Advanced AI is just a really small part of the overall singularity prediction, and it's not predicted to be in any set form.

Kurzweil is smart, but nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is (nobody is as smart as Ray Kurzweil thinks he is).
http://www.newsweek.com/id/197812
http://www.newsweek.com/id/198263
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...ingularity.php
http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/m...ff_kurzweil_sb

[squidmonk3j]

A further increase in specialization and/or an increasing amount of slave labour.

Predicting the future is fairy easy...the good things get better and the bad things get worse.

[zwarrior]

Originally Posted by BuckWeisel

The thing I worry about, at least for art, is the increasing number of short cuts a person can take with a computer. I heard an example from someone about the fully CGI Arnold in Terminator: Salvation. In the future, you will have a digital catalog of every actor/actress. Sort of like how Poser has a variety of models. Voice recognition and sound emulation software will eliminate the need for voice overs. Pre-made and incredibly simple animation tools makes it easy for people to skip learning animation. So you'll have people at home that can make full length movies with their favorite actors with nothing more than a computer.

Instead of a theater you'll have a YouTube type experience where you go in, and pick who's movie you'd like to watch.

What would happen to production art in a similar future, I don't know. It will be interesting to find out though.

nah.... Im pretty sure someone who doesnt have the financial needs could have made a movie better than GI Joe or Transformers 2.Today, books, Comic Books and Animation shorts can all be done by one person and there are some really great examples out there. I welcome your idea for the future of full length movies; yeah there will be a lot of shit movies, but the gems that would come out from hard working creative people makes up for that; profit plays too much of a deciding factor that limits a film maker's potential today.

[Black Spot]

Originally Posted by Krato

I can honestly only think of two potentially safe jobs, prostitution and art.

They're already working on the first.

[Baron Impossible]

One job that won't vanish is predicting future technologies. Take a current trend, extrapolate it using the most obvious of methodologies (or simply your imagination) then waffle about your conclusions. Do this day in, day out. Aim for at least two published predications per week. Don't worry that you'll be wrong 95% of the time; you can shout about your hits whilst studiously ignoring your misses. Still, if you're worried about this then focus on the far future. That way, when the times comes around, people will either have forgotten what you said in the first place or you'll be dead.

[Krato]

Originally Posted by Black Spot

They're already working on the first.

i guess the guy left nasa early so he could work on his fembot.

[kev ferrara]

I think it should be understood that the point of Kurzweil's predictions are to make it so.

He is selling the future he wants so the morale of those with the talents to build this future stay focused and hopeful and funded... which is the only way this particular future may come about.

The Manhattan Project was a prediction that self-fulfilled, and so was the moon landing. The project of science itself is predicated on faith in future success. Without the faith, the entire project falls apart and technology stagnates.

Which is to say, how smart you think Kurzweil is, is only a function of his need to excite you about the technology required to build his vision.

[Krato]

Originally Posted by Baron Impossible

One job that won't vanish is predicting future technologies. Take a current trend, extrapolate it using the most obvious of methodologies (or simply your imagination) then waffle about your conclusions. Do this day in, day out. Aim for at least two published predications per week. Don't worry that you'll be wrong 95% of the time; you can shout about your hits whilst studiously ignoring your misses. Still, if you're worried about this then focus on the far future. That way, when the times comes around, people will either have forgotten what you said in the first place or you'll be dead.

extrapolate: to predict by projecting past experience or known data

is there any other way to predict relatively accurately?

[kev ferrara]

Extrapolation is a fancy word for a guess. Don't be fooled by big words, they're just decorations... ways to make pedestrian thoughts more attractive. A healthy pig doesn't need lipstick. And, furthermore, statistical trends are not vectors, we only think they are because we're stupid monkeys that are used to seeing flung poop rise and fall in a strict parabola according to the laws of inertia.

Regarding the future and how technology will impact it, this is the great gaping black hole of the unknown. Clearly technologies are coming down the pike that are going to radically alter what is currently possible in just about any engineering field you can think of, from energy to biology. Forget 40 years out, 10 years out is just as impossible to predict.

If you want steady employment, be a plumber or a garbage collector. Because the only things that monkeys can't help but make are poop and trash.

[Elwell]

Originally Posted by Krato

is there any way to predict relatively accurately?

Fixed.
And, when dealing with complex systems over any appreciable length of time, no. Especially since, as Kev mentioned in his comment on Kurzweil, the prediction itself becomes another set of data points that have to be figured in.

[Krato]

Originally Posted by Elwell

Fixed.
And, when dealing with complex systems over any appreciable length of time, no. Especially since, as Kev mentioned in his comment on Kurzweil, the prediction itself becomes another set of data points that have to be figured in.

hm, well a guess is a guess, im just curious how everything really will work out in the future.

[Elwell]

Originally Posted by Krato

hm, well a guess is a guess, im just curious how everything really will work out in the future.

[zwarrior]

hehh... there's a difference between an unfounded guess and an educated one. Scientists don't ever make predictions based on faith or mere guesses, they're based on Hypotheses and theories, which "Extrapolation" would be a closer synonym of. The moon landing is based on years of observation, research, and testing- its without those that a project would fall apart.

so back to the topic, like Derek mentioned, Kurzweil's proposition is backed up by statistical facts and experiences. Extrapolation is more than just a "guess" and that's not a fancy decorative word, its more definitive... its a guess backed up by facts, obersations, tests, experiences, etc.; that is how to predict accurately. (not to say they cant turn out to be wrong)

If you want steady employment, be a plumber or a garbage collector. Because the only things that monkeys can't help but make are poop and trash.

I'd hope not, sooner or later technology will sophisticate those two subjects that would make plumbers and garbagemen obsolete. I mean we invented toilets and recycling, and there isnt a day that goes by where scientist or inventors aren't testing new possibilities.

[Slash]

Where some jobs become obsolete, new ones will be invented. There is a small market for steam engine repairmen today, just as there was absolutely no need for iphone technicians ten years ago.

Future jobs will be there, but a lot of them will probably be defined by technology and situations that don't exist yet.

Liquid processor unit massager.
Common sense failsafe human switch operator, flipping the switch of potentially disastrous machinery after reviewing AI-calculated solutions.
nanopoet
Tastebud for hire
art critic
etc etc..

[Oden]

Originally Posted by Slash

nanopoet

I like this, intriguing profession
...reminded me of a fitting poem


All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

by Richard Brautigan

I'd like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.