The Student Room Group

Will robots take our jobs

This government wants a high skilled economy, companies will invest in new technology and it will be the low skill employees who will use their jobs. Will new technology/ Robots replace us all? Will there be any jobs left? Will the government have to give us an universal income?
Reply 1
I can do an article or essay for you, let me know if you interested
Reply 2
Automation has never in history led to fewer jobs or falls in wealth among the public.

It seems we have to fight the Luddites again with every generation.
Reply 3
To a large extent, they already have. We already have a kind of Universal Basic Income, it is in the form of mostly pointless white-collar jobs. You ever wonder what people working in banks actually do? Not much, their jobs could easily be automated. We don't do that because we have a job-fetish, and because company high-ups like to pad their social credibility by having hordes of underlings working for them.
Reply 4
Automation may reach a point at which it generates net unemployment but that is still decades away. The U.K. economy has an economy that generates about 400,000 full time jobs each year so that is the scale that automation would need to reach even exempting underemployment.
Reply 5
Itll take some, just as itll create some.. this has happened countless times before in history, hence the term luddite, i see no reason this wont be the same. Robots are always going to be limited in their utility and what they can perform, not to mention they need people to maintain them.
Can’t wait for AIexit in 2040 when the same people that complained about foreigners taking their jobs now complain about robots taking their jobs.
I'm keen to see if it will remain the case that it generates as opposed to depletes jobs for humans as their ability span widens.
I think there's a lack of nuance here. The people being attacked as luddites aren't necessarily against technology, they are against losing their livelihoods.

Also I'm very much reminded of how journalists responded to being advised to take their own medicine. I can't help but wonder how people above would respond to finding out they are outdated and have to find a new career - let alone people who may have been doing that for decades.
https://newrepublic.com/article/153019/fetid-right-wing-origins-learn-code

That said I'm not necessarily disagreeing with them. I think if handled properly wide scale automation could be a great thing. But I think for most of history, whilst in the end it's been a good thing overall for many people it has ruined their lives.
If you make hiring robots cheaper than hiring humans then yes.

In China in some cases they went back to humans as labor was cheaper.
I think it creates jobs, but also thousands have been replaced by robots.
For example my local sainsbury's is now replaced with self checkout machines instead of cashiers...
Automation will change the economy, sure some jobs will become redundant but their is never a limit to the number of jobs, the economy will adapt.

I suppose a better question is how do we adapt the economy to find jobs for low aptitude workers to offer a worthwhile contribution if menial jobs shrink.
Original post by Jingo7
To a large extent, they already have. We already have a kind of Universal Basic Income, it is in the form of mostly pointless white-collar jobs. You ever wonder what people working in banks actually do? Not much, their jobs could easily be automated. We don't do that because we have a job-fetish, and because company high-ups like to pad their social credibility by having hordes of underlings working for them.

Well that's correct as all four banks in our nearest village have now gone. The nearest branch now is in a town 10 miles away. The people in the closed branches mostly lost their jobs and all the holes in the wall went with the branches.
Reply 13
Original post by Jingo7
To a large extent, they already have. We already have a kind of Universal Basic Income, it is in the form of mostly pointless white-collar jobs. You ever wonder what people working in banks actually do? Not much, their jobs could easily be automated. We don't do that because we have a job-fetish, and because company high-ups like to pad their social credibility by having hordes of underlings working for them.

Which aspect of banking are you talking about? A tellar? Sure, they have been automated to a fair part. Traders? Equally, many of those jobs are now computer run given the frequency they can run at.
On the other hand though the problems with lending through algorithm are well known for their problems and are one of the reasons why people are still in the loop there.

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