Jobs, jobs jobs...someone is taking them!

I don’t think all jobs will be lost to technology, but it’s true that factors like automation are causing the job market to shrink in many sectors. Combined with the growth in population, this is a serious problem.

Has anybody ever read “The Feeling of Power” by Isaac Asimov? It anticipates a world where computer automation has completely replaced human labor. It goes a step further and supposes a world where humans have become so dependent on computers and have lived with them so long, that humans have forgotten how to perform the simplest mathematical calculations. After a few humans regain and demonstrate the ability to do simple arithmetic, a trend begins where human governments seek human labor to replace computer automation, believing it to be a decisive advantage over their enemies.

An interesting scenario…

Agreed, a lot of computer science, data entry, data gathering, collection jobs = lost to automation.

Calls on phone? Automated. Decline in “real mail” - blame it on email. Decline in fax transmissions? Blame it on email & PDF.

Decline in house cleaning service demand? Blame it on the roomba ;)

Decline in automotive worker jobs = blame it on industrial robots.

Yep, it’s definitely an issue, and nope, nobody likes to talk about it. I can visit a local office to buy insurance, OR I can walk an automated process online to accomplish the same task. One takes a human (on the sales side) hours, the other takes a few minutes to review…result? Less employees needed in the overall sales process of insurance which means, again, less jobs.