regift_of_the_gods writes:
"A study that was published last year by two Oxford researchers predicted that 47 percent of US jobs could be computerized within the next 20 years, including both manual labor and high cognition office work. The Oxford report presented three axes to show what types of jobs were relatively safe from being routed by robots and software; those requiring high levels of social intelligence (public relations), creativity (scientist, fashion designer), or perception and manipulation (surgeon) were less likely to be displaced.
This further obsolescence of jobs due to automation may have already begun. The Financial Times describes an emerging wave of products and services from algorithmic-intensive, data-rich tech startups that will threaten increasing numbers of jobs including both knowledge and blue collar workers. The lead example is Kensho, a startup founded by ex-Google and Apple engineers that is building an engine to estimate the impact of real or hypothetical news items on security prices, with questions posed in a natural language. Specialist knowledge workers in many other fields, including law and medicine, could also be at risk. At lower income levels, the dangerous are posed by increasingly agile and autonomous robots, such as those Amazon uses to staff some of its fulfillment warehouses.
(Score: 1) by HiThere on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:31PM
Don't be so certain that "We'll find something to do.". More and more people AREN'T finding something to do. The actual percentage of unemployed in the US is currently higher than it's been since women were allowed into the workforce. And the percentage in poverty has been increasing over the last decade or so. Also the percentage in "extreme poverty". And please note that urban poverty isn't like historic rural poverty, in that there aren't (almost) always things a healthy person can do to get by.
Put not your faith in princes.
(Score: 1) by jcd on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:01PM
Don't worry, I know about the involuntarily unemployed. I'm one of them.
"What good's an honest soldier if he can be ordered to behave like a terrorist?"