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Now's the time to Start Planning
Engineer Arto Nurmikko examines a prototype of a wireless, fully implantable brain-recording device.
Fred Field for Brown University
Richard (RJ) Eskow | The Huffington Post
A new study says that nearly half of all American jobs may soon be performed by robots.
They conclude that, in the first wave of automation,
most workers in transportation and logistics occupations
the bulk of office and administrative support workers
labour in production occupations
are likely to be substituted by computer capital."
The authors add that,
"more surprisingly," service, sales, and construction jobs will be increasingly vulnerable to automation.
They conclude that "generalist occupations requiring knowledge of human heuristics, and specialist occupations involving the development of novel ideas and artifacts, are the least susceptible to computerization."
The New York Time points out the consumer appeal of "made in the USA" products, along with the bragging rights politicians can earn for bringing these industries back home. But, as the Times points out, "it means jobs, but on nowhere near the scale there was before, because machines have replaced humans at almost every point in the production process."
But US sales of manufacturing goods will only be robust as long as workers have jobs and are earning enough money to buy them.
What about the robots? That's the question of the day: What should we do about automation? If we ignore its long-term implications, the US labor force will take the first hit. But most corporations will eventually get their turn in the barrel.
We don't know what will happen. We only know what might happen. But it would be foolish not to plan for that.
A rational planning process would look something like this ......
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