Forget about outsourcing to India, here's the real threat to your job:
Listening to Marshall Brain explain the future as he sees it, it's relatively easy to suspend disbelief and agree how plausible it is that over the next 40 years most of our jobs will be displaced by robots.
According to Brain's projections, laid out in an essay, "Robotic Nation," humanoid robots will be widely available by the year 2030, and able to replace jobs currently filled by people in areas such as fast-food service, housecleaning and retail. Unless ways are found to compensate for these lost jobs, Brain estimates that more than half of Americans could be unemployed by 2055.
Damn, Steve Martin might not have been crazy after all. Maybe he was just ahead of his time. Because if they take our jobs, isn't it just a matter of time before they come after our luggage?
And then, eventually, our women?
Posted by Phil at August 5, 2003 12:38 PM | TrackBackI sort of prefer that AIs become women. I'll take a Winona and Kurstin Dunst Bots to go...you gals like comics, science fiction and impoverished conditions? Well, you lil' ladies are in luck...
Posted by: Philip Shropshire at August 5, 2003 02:29 PMUnless and until robots are cheaper to buy and maintain than the hiring costs for illegal immigrants and teenagers, Burger Kings and farmers will continue to use human labor. In business it is all about cost. It won't be any different in 2030.
Posted by: Robert Baker at August 5, 2003 09:21 PMSo if half of us are out of work because the companies have replaced us with robots,....Who are the companies selling their products to? This is the same doom and gloom that was predicted when computers started entering the workplace.
Posted by: Enoch at August 6, 2003 03:19 PMSF author James Blish predicted this in his CITIES IN FLIGHT novels. Advances in computers made it impossible to get a job unless one's IQ was above 150. Predictably the result was a global depression.
Posted by: Nyrath at August 7, 2003 08:58 AM