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AI replacing white collar workers. Not SF but a current reality!

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  • AI replacing white collar workers. Not SF but a current reality!

    Several days ago The Guardian reported that "Insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is making 34 employees redundant and replacing them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AI". To read more, click here


    20 years ago para-legals became redundant in most of the developed world. The work went to PHD's in Manilla. 30 years ago there were fewer IT jobs as companies outsourced to India. A while later as salaries in India rose, Indian companies outsourced to sub-contractors in China and there were fewer IT jobs in India. The same senarios occured in Accounting, Graphic arts & Technical design. At least people were involved in these transitions. Now, in the near future many occupations will be replaced by AI - people on the ground will be few.

    So what will happen to all the displaced (unemployed) people. Retraining? Retraining in what!

  • #2
    Did you know that the entire staff of tweb, and our entire membership are AI's? We let occasional humans, like you, come in so we can study you.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      Did you know that the entire staff of tweb, and our entire membership are AI's? We let occasional humans, like you, come in so we can study you.
      For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

      That explains a lot.



      We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore on Christ's behalf: 'Be reconciled to God!!'
      - 2 Corinthians 5:20.
      In deviantArt: ll-bisto-ll.deviantart.com
      Christian art and more: Christians.deviantart.com

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Bisto View Post
        For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

        That explains a lot.



        Looks like you missed your last upgrade. Please reboot.

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        • #5
          Automation is probably the greatest threat to the world economy in the 21st century. Some European countries are already looking at guaranteeing a universal wage to all citizens with it in mind.
          "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

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          • #6
            It's an awesome and terrifying development.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
              Automation is probably the greatest threat to the world economy in the 21st century. Some European countries are already looking at guaranteeing a universal wage to all citizens with it in mind.
              They have been saying that since the Industrial Revolution. Sure, machines replace people, but then you need people to maintain the machines, to design them, install them, run them, repair them. The jobs just move to another sector. So instead of having actuaries sitting on computers looking up death tables, you have technicians programming and maintaining AI's. Jobs become obsolete in any industry. Where are the buggy whip designers now?

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              • #8
                Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                Automation is probably the greatest threat to the world economy in the 21st century. Some European countries are already looking at guaranteeing a universal wage to all citizens with it in mind.
                Automation is primarily a threat to people who perform repetitive tasks. We're still many, many years away from automation being able to do anything in an unpredictable environment that requires creative thinking.
                Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                Than a fool in the eyes of God


                From "Fools Gold" by Petra

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by elam View Post
                  20 years ago para-legals became redundant in most of the developed world. The work went to PHD's in Manilla. 30 years ago there were fewer IT jobs as companies outsourced to India.
                  Why would paralegal work be outsourced to PhDs anywhere? And what does that have to do with IT?
                  Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                  Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
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                  I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                    Why would paralegal work be outsourced to PhDs anywhere? And what does that have to do with IT?
                    yeah that confused me too. They still use lots of paralegals at the law firms I know.

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                    • #11
                      Outsourcing and automation is leading to erosion of the middle class. Societies will be divided into the wealthy few and the impoverished and hopeless multitude with terrible consequences for the multitude. Jobs serving the super rich will be fairly scarce because the rich will be a very small percentage of the total. The modern industrial economies will collapse because the poor will have insufficient wealth to run them. The lead up to this collapse is by increasing personal debt, leading to bankruptcy. The recent 2008 collapse was a taste of what is to repeated more powerfully.
                      “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                      “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                      “not all there” - you know who you are

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                      • #12
                        I told my wife about this article, and she said, "Well how hard is it to mark every claim 'Denied!'?"

                        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                        Than a fool in the eyes of God


                        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          The explanation given to us by our most IT-focused teacher at uni (an informatics engineer and entrepreneur) is that the idea is for people to take over the more creative jobs as automation is progressively used to take over the rest of the tasks. I guess the idea is good in principle (increase productivity and efficiency, produce at lower costs and prices, etc.) but its implementation, and the unlikelihood of those obsolete experienced workers training for completely new and different tasks, is the issue. And I guess some would add wealth distribution issues arising from this like FF above.

                          I don't have a very formed opinion on this yet, but from what I know, I am hopeful and somewhat optimistic towards issues such as this. I think we'll manage.
                          We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore on Christ's behalf: 'Be reconciled to God!!'
                          - 2 Corinthians 5:20.
                          In deviantArt: ll-bisto-ll.deviantart.com
                          Christian art and more: Christians.deviantart.com

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            Did you know that the entire staff of tweb, and our entire membership are AI's? We let occasional humans, like you, come in so we can study you.
                            Ah yes, and: “White mice are merely the protrusion into our dimension of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings that, unbeknownst to the human race, are the most intelligent species on the planet Earth. They spent a lot of their time in laboratories running complex experiments on humans whom they cunningly let think are experimenting on them.” Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Gallaxy..
                            “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                              They have been saying that since the Industrial Revolution. Sure, machines replace people, but then you need people to maintain the machines, to design them, install them, run them, repair them. The jobs just move to another sector. So instead of having actuaries sitting on computers looking up death tables, you have technicians programming and maintaining AI's. Jobs become obsolete in any industry. Where are the buggy whip designers now?
                              Thats wishful thinking. Back in 1980 I was employed by a British company to rationalise their accounting bureau - eliminate duplication. After a few weeks of following paper trails I ended up in the computer facility (at the time run by actuaries). Up shot. 30 people got retrenched, a couple of people got redeployed - it has always bothered me but the reality is that was my job!

                              Worldwide grads from Uni can't find employment - there just aren't enough jobs to go around. Back in the 1970s we had high unemployment, but great social security (the dole) and the then govt encouraged people to seek an alternate lifestyle = join or form a commune.

                              I read in the news that on the North Coast a luxurious commune just opened and sold out in days...could be an option...

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