Jobs in 200 years

[canopuss]

Within 200 years following are likely to happen

More robots to do the work.
More automation.
Matter replication etc.

http://www.futuretimeline.net/22ndcentury/2150-2199.htm

Is this means, in about 200 years time do most humans need a job to survive ? There won’t be much jobs left anyway as most of it will be done by robots, cyborgs etc.

[Jens]

As a famous German philosopher once said, we will "hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."

[Swift]

Within 200 years following are likely to happen

Likely? I would not use the term "likely" with any such predictions.

If the human race lasts that long, and with a technological civilization (likely, IMO), then the use robots and automation seems likely. Matter replication, like on Star Trek? We don't even know if such physics is possible.

Predictions about what jobs are going to be around... pure speculation.

[mutleyeng]

nah,
the humans will be butlers and maids for the robots...there be plenty of work, dont worry

[ravens_cry]

If current trends say anything, we'll become even more specialized in the sciences.
After all, a human can become an in-depth expert on so much.

[Cookie]

Well, we might not need a job to survive, someday.

However, we'll still need, or desire, for humans to actively participate in:
Entertainment (Acting, Singing, Dancing, Writing, Directing, and so on),
Design (Clothing, Accessories, Shoes, Hats, Architecture, Art),
Management (Don't want the robots managing themselves, do ya?), O_o
Exploration (Because, you know, it's THERE), XD
Cooking (as a Novelty, or because it Tastes Better, they'll swear).

There's probably other things too, but that's all I can come up with at this late hour.

[Ivan Viehoff]

Just the same thing used to be said 40 years ago. And despite considerably increased automation of manufacturing since that time, just as preducted, and a much lower proportion of human labour being devoted thereto, there still seems to be lots of work to be done and people in high income countries don't seem to be working any less.

[noncryptic]

There would still be jobs doing creation and maintenance of the automated systems.

In essence it's no different than what went before: technological advances allow for increased efficiency in production (in terms of man-hours); more wealth/comfort/luxury for less time spent laboring.
How that affects peoples lives depends on how the benefit is distributed. If history is an indication then it will benefit a small number of individuals greatly while many others receive little or no benefit.

[antoniseb]

I think about the future a lot, including ideas about what resources individuals will have, and how they will get distributed... but I also think that (as others above have noted) that being able to see the end of the need for jobs we do now does not mean there will be an end of jobs. Our lack of imagination or foresight doesn't mean we won't have our culture evolve toward other uses of human motivation. ... I think a lot of us will be involved in research and other creative efforts.

[Swift]

I think about the future a lot, including ideas about what resources individuals will have, and how they will get distributed... but I also think that (as others above have noted) that being able to see the end of the need for jobs we do now does not mean there will be an end of jobs. Our lack of imagination or foresight doesn't mean we won't have our culture evolve toward other uses of human motivation. ... I think a lot of us will be involved in research and other creative efforts.

Who, 30 or 50 years ago, would have thought that there would be people with such jobs as App Developer, Blogger, or Nanomaterial Researcher.

[antoniseb]

Who, 30 or 50 years ago, would have thought that there would be people with such jobs as App Developer, Blogger, or Nanomaterial Researcher.

Right, even if you did somehow foresee the end of telephone switchboard operators, mail sorters, and elevator men...

[JCoyote]

I am seeing a slight issue here... in fact I do think some of our recent economic issues stem from some of this already.

As costs of manufacturing efficiently come down and automation of both manufacturing and testing of production loses all human interaction beyond a managerial/liability requirement... look guys, for-profit companies will always try to trim to the least possible number of workers. And what ones they do need? They will attempt to minimize usage of them. Bare minimum. It costs less.

All this activity has been going toward, on a major level, enriching a very small portion of the population. The drive toward minimal compensation of the work force also helps insure this; investment capital without leverage is a luxury the underpaid workers can't afford.

With the automation of all non-artisan manufacturing and farming, and with automation crawling up the ranks to everything below middle management... a very minimal number...

Here you are... a middle class or lower individual. You need food. No one is hiring. Make up a business to sell to your friends? They have no fundamental income either. All of that is automated and streaming funds into only one direction, upward. Yea sure the automation has brought down product costs... but cheap is NOT free and they won't give it away. But neither you nor anyone you know has fundamental income generation anymore. The companies are not producing this stuff as charity. See the problem here? Grow your own food you say? Do you own any land? No? The people who run production control it all? Obviously they aren't going to let you use their land to grow food in competition with them.

The idea that somehow jobs would appear out of thin air for this issue sounds very suspiciously like a religious faith. There is no real basis for it. Large numbers of people can be out of work, large numbers of people can starve and have malnutrition just because there is no way for them to make a living.

This all stems from competition for fundamentals... all the rest is merely service industry and floats based on demand and money originating out of those fundamentals: food production, energy production, water, and the manufactured items needed to acquire and utilize those things. A level of common property has traditionally existed with most of this activity because human workers were needed for all of it. Automation allows for breaking this tradition and allows all fundamental production to be sequestered under the control of fewer and fewer people. All this nice concept about service industry and all that? It all floats on top of peripheral demand AFTER fundamental production. If those handful of people who control automated production of all fundamentals don't feel there is anything you can offer they should pay you for, they won't.

6 billion people can't survive off whatever peripheral "service" demands there are from a hundred million or so people who control industry top to bottom and have automated everything to self sustain that... which they own... have DRM over... and can even remotely shutdown if non-owners attempt to use them. Owners who will leading up to this have no issue with flat out buying political power. People in large numbers can ultimately be... unneeded in a system that evolves. It's a scary thought.

[Ivan Viehoff]

There would still be jobs doing creation and maintenance of the automated systems.

And cutting people's hair, and selling stuff, and transporting materials, and running care homes, and creating soft content for electronic devices, and mending the road, and....

[profloater]

200 years is a long time, time enough for more than one reversal of fortune. Very few trends last that long. It is the reversals that mark out history rather than the trends. In 200 years how many epidemics? How many wars? How many lost technologies? If there is a trend toward the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, how long can that remain stable? Maybe the Matrix IS the answer.!

[Xelebes]

I cannot wait until the day we have robots who own for us.

[Ara Pacis]

I think about the future a lot, including ideas about what resources individuals will have, and how they will get distributed... but I also think that (as others above have noted) that being able to see the end of the need for jobs we do now does not mean there will be an end of jobs. Our lack of imagination or foresight doesn't mean we won't have our culture evolve toward other uses of human motivation. ... I think a lot of us will be involved in research and other creative efforts.

That may depend on if we develop AI which can do some of the creative work for us. Sure, maybe someone wants to make a movie and wants us to give him money to watch it, but if we have an AI in our pocket, it could make a movie for us that might be as entertaining. But I agree, there will be some jobs because some people will be bored, some people will think they can do better than AI, robots, or automation, and some people will want to find a way to lord it over others because lording it over robots just won't be entertaining enough.

quote=Swift]Who, 30 or 50 years ago, would have thought that there would be people with such jobs as App Developer, Blogger, or Nanomaterial Researcher. [/quote]That's just new terms for old jobs: writer, journalist, chemist.

I think JCoyote mirrors my sentiments, as mentioned in other threads. We'll need a new labor valuation paradigm. Perhaps it will include 3 day weekends, more vacation, etc. And new rules on intellectual property, because when a company can buy up a patent or company with a new idea and just sit on it to squelch competition, it hurts us all.

[danscope]

I'm surprised that no one mentions Agriculture much . Surely we will dedicate much in labor and in treasure to win more and better fruits from our fields and garden. But...... a solar powered robot that weeds and stimulates plants, nutures the soil and is built low to the ground, slow and practical? Now, I wonder.Who will build it? Sony, Hitachi, HP, Xerox? A smart robot knows what plant it is looking at, works in the rain. Imagine a bot picking blueberries?
It comes down to jobs for people,.... or jobs for machines.

[publiusr]

I just see the desperation economy getting worse. Prices go up, wages stagnate. Public sector jobs are reduced to min wage, then that takes a hit:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1263031.html
http://tommytoy.typepad.com/tommy-to...g-jobs-ov.html

Repo man tows the pawn stars car, so Repo man can pay off his debt to the payday loan shark, who can't afford his monthly payment to the rental storage unit which gets auctioned off to the pawn star.

Repeat.

Then all get photo-ticketed at faster cycling red-light camera traps, the banks force everybody into the streets, and we all wind up in debtor's prisons which are making a comeback:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...lls/?mobile=nc

Just look at the sprawl we call our neighborhoods. No factories, just firms that folks use to prey one upon the other. Pawn shops, liquor stores, payday loans, repo lots--that's our future.

[Noclevername]

Just look at the sprawl we call our neighborhoods. No factories, just firms that folks use to prey one upon the other. Pawn shops, liquor stores, payday loans, repo lots--that's our future.

That desperation economy won't last 200 years, though; within that time either we'll come up with a better system, or the current economic civilization will collapse and reboot.

[noncryptic]

That desperation economy won't last 200 years

I'm not so sure. The situation seems to be worsening, not improving.
Isn't any economy/society that's substantially relying on slavery, serfdom and debt bondage, a desperation economy? Was that not the situation during the Middle Ages? It lasted more than 200 years.

or the current economic civilization will collapse and reboot.

Which would cause quite a bit of desperation for many people, for who knows how long a stretch of time.

[SkepticJ]

That desperation economy won't last 200 years, though; within that time either we'll come up with a better system, or the current economic civilization will collapse and reboot.

It's exceedingly unlikely that the whole world would follow this path, and technology, knowledge and memes have moved on since the fall of the ancient empires.

If Europe and the United States go under, I'm sure Japan, China, Brazil, Canada, and other nations that have their crap together will be more than happy to expand their borders into the collapsed territories.

[Solfe]

Tech support will likely be around... although I am sure the term "Blue Screen of Death" will mean something completely different if robots become self aware.

[Noclevername]

I'm not so sure. The situation seems to be worsening, not improving.
Isn't any economy/society that's substantially relying on slavery, serfdom and debt bondage, a desperation economy? Was that not the situation during the Middle Ages? It lasted more than 200 years.

The current situation in Western nations is very different from Middle Ages Europe. There are a lot more educated people and a lot more workforce, period. Not to mention communcations that allow large groups to organize and exchange information far more quickly than medieval times could provide.

Which would cause quite a bit of desperation for many people, for who knows how long a stretch of time.

But it would be a very different sort of deperation than the one you were describing in your above post, and would make people in general even more motivated to create an alternative and more pragmatic system. We would no longer have "first world problems" to deal with.

[Ara Pacis]

It's exceedingly unlikely that the whole world would follow this path, and technology, knowledge and memes have moved on since the fall of the ancient empires.

If Europe and the United States go under, I'm sure Japan, China, Brazil, Canada, and other nations that have their crap together will be more than happy to expand their borders into the collapsed territories.

No one's expanded into Somalia or Afghanistan, punitive or charitable expeditions being different from actual conquest and annexation. To take over a collapsed America would probably cost more than its worth, which may be different from annexing uncollapsed portions of the country.

[Ara Pacis]

The current situation in Western nations is very different from Middle Ages Europe. There are a lot more educated people and a lot more workforce, period. Not to mention communcations that allow large groups to organize and exchange information far more quickly than medieval times could provide.

But it would be a very different sort of deperation than the one you were describing in your above post, and would make people in general even more motivated to create an alternative and more pragmatic system. We would no longer have "first world problems" to deal with.

Ah, but the means to enforce the system are more capable too. It's easy to "create an alternative and more pragmatic system" when everyone has muskets, but it's harder when one side has Apache attack helicopters.

Desperation is a state of mind, but that's based on what a mind expects. Peonage and Patronage, Fuedalism and Fealty etc could work even in modern America, for better or worse.

[ravens_cry]

Tech support will likely be around... although I am sure the term "Blue Screen of Death" will mean something completely different if robots become self aware.

I wouldn't wonder if Asimov's prediction of robot psychiatrists (as in psychiatrists for robots) wouldn't be spot on.
Debugging a sentient program on a programming would be hellishly complex and fraught with unintended consequences, so higher level fixes could be worth trying.

[TJMac]

I have read opinions from both sides, regarding robots in the work force, and whether or not it will do away with jobs, or create a different type of job. The jury is still out, methinks.

Quite frankly, I would have preferred a robot to the fellow behind the counter a McD's the other day. The guy I was with, (since you fill your own drinks) says, as it's listed on the sign, "I'd like two beverages, please."

Seems simple, right? WRONG! Our intrepid and underqualified employee stares blankly, and asks, "Uh, you want a McDouble?"

My friend speaks slowly and clearly this time, "Two Large Beverages. Please."

Employee: "What do you mean?"

I rescue them both by saying, "He wants two drinks. They are called beverages on the sign."

Employee: "Oh!"

I'm not even sure how you get a job in a food serving capacity without understanding what a beverage is.

TJ

[Robert Tulip]

The internet has dramatically improved world productivity, enabling technological development and wealth creation at a much more rapid pace than in the past. Technology is the back story for economic growth and social stability, and is enabling further shift from production to services as the core of advanced economies. Growth actually tends to benefit all quintiles, but people's attitudes are guided by relative wealth more than by absolute wealth, producing dystopian whinging. Despite problems such as the collapse of social capital, new technology is making people's lives easier, longer, richer and more productive.

What I think will happen is that there will actually be more fairness, such that a person who achieves a level of productivity in a poor country will receive the same reward for their effort as a person with the same productivity in a rich country. But the productivity gap will remain because the institutional frameworks of different countries enable different real levels of productivity even for similar tasks. A person doing menial services in a rich country will be paid more than one doing similar work in a poor country, because in a rich country support services are required for knowledge workers who produce the real wealth, so the rich have to pay more to get the same service.

We now see massive growth of 'useless' industries in entertainment and sport whose only real product is fun. As production of actual wealth is automated, and continues to grow exponentially, this wealth produces surplus value whose social licence to operate requires fair distribution through bread and circuses.

The big issue is global warming. Unless we stabilise the climate fast through a shift to a sustainable energy platform we are cactus.

Median world income is just under three dollars a day.

[Noclevername]

Ah, but the means to enforce the system are more capable too. It's easy to "create an alternative and more pragmatic system" when everyone has muskets, but it's harder when one side has Apache attack helicopters.

Assuming only one side does. But better weapons are not a guarantee of victory (see Vietnam), especially if there is popular support for a side.

Desperation is a state of mind, but that's based on what a mind expects. Peonage and Patronage, Fuedalism and Fealty etc could work even in modern America, for better or worse.

True but irrelevant, as that's not the kind of desperation economy Publiusr was referring to and I was responding to.

[primummobile]

I think this list reads a lot like Ray Kurzweil on steroids. Whether or not we have a lifestyle based on some type of poor/rich dichotomy or the lifestyle claimed in the list will, I believe, depend upon two things.

First is the availability of a renewable, inexpensive, and abundant source of energy. I'm not sure where that will come from. I think the article is optomistic about antimatter energy. We have only managed to produce minute quantities of animatter and only at tremendous cost. We may be able to collect it in space in places like the Van Allen Radiation Belts, but as far as I know it's only been detected in minute quantities... certainly not enough to be useful. It seems to me that the best source of energy would be fusion power. About .015% of the hydrogen atoms in our oceans are deuterium. That would be enough to supply our energy needs for a very long time. However, current manufacturing techniques for distilling deuterium from seawater are very cost-intensive and I really don't think that fusion power technology will be viable for at least another half-century, if not more. We're liable to face far bigger problems well before that.

But I do think that a lot of the rich/poor divide could be bridged if we found better sources of energy than what we have now. Most of our existence revolves the production of energy and food. If we could eliminate most of that expense it would be good for everyone.

The second thing we would need is the development of reliable automated production. If we had production means that could use cheap, abundant energy with little human oversight there would be no need for a profit motive. If a car could be produced for a dollar, or a bushel of corn for a fraction of a penny, there would be no advantage to being rich. Of course, some people have a need to be rich simply to improve their social standing, but I think that would disappear in time. We would eventually switch to an economy where needs and wants could be provided at will because there would be no economic advantage to controlling energy or the means of production.

With that being said, I think it sounds a lot like Star Trek. And I don't think it's going to happen any time in the next 200 years. I also think that to achieve anything even remotely similar to this will take massive amounts of sacrifice on the part of the pioneers of these systems. We just have too many problems and are facing too many different tipping points.