The robot Jobspocalypse is now on. I read today that MGM in Vegas is replacing thousandsof workers with robots. Within two years, fast food will have a significant robot presence; within five, I predict half or more will go to robots. Hotel concierge, bank tellers, pizza and a lot of other front door delivery, low level nursing, a much greater percentage of elder care, agriculture propagation and harvesting, long haul trucking, most forms of taxi and ride share, many repetitive construction tasks, a significant slice of analytical and financial service duties, most help desk, more manufacturing, much more warehouse, and God knows what else: all of these will hit critical mass within five years, eventually to suck the majority of those jobs into the robot vortex. Within ten years, 2029, ‘entry’ and low skill jobs will be rare if even available to anyone.
Where will these people go for work? Career tracks as we know them now will not exist. Millions will work in digital jobs or professional jobs but by that time, that track will go only to the narrower economic segment that can afford good school systems and universities; the ten-percenters if you will. Some trades and some ‘dirty-jobs’ will exist as will military and government sector jobs. By 2029, robots will make robots that make almost everything else, not just here but in China and other superpower nations. By then, the US will no longer have production hegemony of advanced goods. We may still dominate intellectual property or perhaps not. Our only edge may be in digital, entertainment, and educational resources that thrive in a relatively free Internet space but that would only be because the rest of the work has outdone us in tamping down the free exchange of ideas across digital pathways, as presently noted in Europe, China, and Russia.
So, what about the rest? This remains to be seen. This is where and how socialism will gain a foothold as hundreds of tens of millions of people basically demand it, not fully appreciating to two-edged consequences. This is what we see taking shape now, but it’s just an inkling of what’s to come. This is where it could go, to take a mile-high view: Much of modern history saw people’s personal autonomy grow over many centuries, afforded by expanding growth and opportunity in their vocations. We’re approaching a singularity where that will reverse as the same technology that gave, turns around and starts to take. We may have creature comforts, (if we behave and accrue social credit) but we will only have what is allotted by the hybrid amalgamation of hyper-capitalism married with the hyper-state, (already almost fully formed).
Robots have consequences, but they are not directly at fault; not any more than a gun can act autonomously from a shooter. Technology, like run-away AI, is its own irresistible force that cannot deny itself. There are very few historical models where people have said, “we have come far enough, we must stop here”, with regard to technology. Wherever it’s occurred, its effect was temporary. I predict that the only natural fix will be depopulation. A minority school of thought among population researchers is predicting that world population will soon peak and reverse, and once it starts to reverse, there is no bottom. This almost sounds merciful. Cheery, eh?