Sunday, April 6, 2014

Future - A Very Convenient Society but without Jobs


I can't imagine a security guard who can hope to match the skills of even current robots, e.g. Knightscope's K5 beta. Such devices will replace security guards in, at least, high risk areas and soon.

Drones will deliver pizzas and our packages in case the delivery person is unreliable or expensive. The obvious implication is that such jobs cannot be anything other than low paying.

Robotic telemarketers may be a joke at present but reduction in the growth of call centers is inevitable. Call centers were probably the most important transformation in job market for the educated in India.

Who wouldn't like to see, at least, bad drivers replaced by driverless vehicles

Statistics as in "Unemployment in the Era of Jobless Growth" show that unemployment rate in India increases sharply as the level of education rises and is over 25% for graduates and above. It is not going to be cured by improvements in education. For example, I would expect that there is a far greater chance of some smart programmers replacing the need for programmers than most of the software engineering graduates being productive enough to be employable.

So, is any political party anywhere in the world talking about the needs of the society once a fair proportion of the society will be unemployable and a fair amount will work for low wages with little hope of improvement? We will need more government intervention and not less. Europe is probably better prepared for the future and India should emulate European welfare states rather than the US.

The bus protests in San Francisco may be just the beginning as the implications of a very convenient, tech driven society sink in.

We shop using computer programs, pay using computer programs. A computer program and a robot communicate and pack what we have ordered. A drone is informed of the delivery address and the package arrives at our doorstep!

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