Seeing the automotive industry cull the workforce already --- there is no question that modularization and automation will impact manufacturing heavily. When the engine line I worked on was shut down and the new engine line that replaced it started up, 2/3 of the skilled workers and machinists were laid off. 3/4 of the Assemblers and low skill workers were laid off.
When it hits the service industry---and this is coming (check your supermarket self checkout and kiosks at McDonalds) --- that's when we'll be forced to have a conversation about what it's prudent to do with unemployed/displaced workers.
Never before has one thing threatened so many jobs at once. How many truck drivers, Cab/Uber drivers, Delivery Drivers will be displaced when self driving vehicles become ubiquitous? When the norm is to have an iPad at your table at the restaurant instead of a waiter, or when McDonald's needs 2 people to run the entire operation rather than 6-7, or when Amazon doesn't need 200 human pickers at a fulfillment center, or when WalMart needs back of the house people to stock shelves only, I don't believe that there's enough innovation to replace all of those workers.
Even byproducts of the current technology we have help spur this on. Think about how many of us hate talking on the phone. There's even a meme on the internet asking "Who calls anymore?" Young people, by and large, hate interacting with customer service. Kiosks and no server will be welcomed without much pushback. I'm already starting to see this. I was at Red Robin sitting at the bar and I ordered my entire meal and a drink from a little doodad on the bartop. Large companies will roll out these technologies, and large swaths of our employed low skill workforce will be unemployed, their skills being in in precipitously less demand.
When it hits the service industry---and this is coming (check your supermarket self checkout and kiosks at McDonalds) --- that's when we'll be forced to have a conversation about what it's prudent to do with unemployed/displaced workers.
Never before has one thing threatened so many jobs at once. How many truck drivers, Cab/Uber drivers, Delivery Drivers will be displaced when self driving vehicles become ubiquitous? When the norm is to have an iPad at your table at the restaurant instead of a waiter, or when McDonald's needs 2 people to run the entire operation rather than 6-7, or when Amazon doesn't need 200 human pickers at a fulfillment center, or when WalMart needs back of the house people to stock shelves only, I don't believe that there's enough innovation to replace all of those workers.
Even byproducts of the current technology we have help spur this on. Think about how many of us hate talking on the phone. There's even a meme on the internet asking "Who calls anymore?" Young people, by and large, hate interacting with customer service. Kiosks and no server will be welcomed without much pushback. I'm already starting to see this. I was at Red Robin sitting at the bar and I ordered my entire meal and a drink from a little doodad on the bartop. Large companies will roll out these technologies, and large swaths of our employed low skill workforce will be unemployed, their skills being in in precipitously less demand.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
