AI/ machine learning is really expensive to most companies. The ROI just isn't there for a lot of business domains. I don't think we'll ever reach a full AI controlled society for the sames reason the world will never run out of oil: supply and demand. As demand rises so will price, and at a certain point it's cheaper to employ people.
That said, there will be swaths of industry that are more easily automated that will be (and already are), but there are much larger areas that will still need people doing the 'plumbing' with excel and phone calls.
My guess is there's going to be a continued trifurcation in the white collar work force that we've been seeing for 20 years.
1) The MBAs: they will continue to run the show for the vast majority of businesses. 10%
2) The tech kings/queens, barons, and knights: they will run a few of the mega-tech businesses. The rest will work for the MBA's and get rewarded nicely. 10%
3) The information plumbers: proficient at writing/reading reports for the MBA's, working in excel, calling who needs to be called, and moving stuff to the right space when the machine doesn't know how to (e.g. when the tech royalty messes up). 80%
Then there's the blue collar class. Most of the changes there have already begun to happen. The loss of jobs in manufacturing will be echoed in some other industries (e.g. trucking... we'll still need truckers, just not the same % of the population).
The standard solutions for these changes people propose is:
1) UBI: I believe this is a pipe dream that helps the tech royalty sleep at night.
2) Training: Covert Blue collar jobs into the while collar plumbing class. A nice idea, and has merit. The problem is white collar is office, and most blue collar employees _HATE_ the office.
3) Infrastructure: hearkening back to the United States CCC, beef up infrastructure projects to replace loss of jobs in the blue collar sector. This is not a bad idea, but has funding issues.
AI/ machine learning is really expensive to most companies. The ROI just isn't there for a lot of business domains. I don't think we'll ever reach a full AI controlled society for the sames reason the world will never run out of oil: supply and demand. As demand rises so will price, and at a certain point it's cheaper to employ people.
That said, there will be swaths of industry that are more easily automated that will be (and already are), but there are much larger areas that will still need people doing the 'plumbing' with excel and phone calls.
My guess is there's going to be a continued trifurcation in the white collar work force that we've been seeing for 20 years. 1) The MBAs: they will continue to run the show for the vast majority of businesses. 10% 2) The tech kings/queens, barons, and knights: they will run a few of the mega-tech businesses. The rest will work for the MBA's and get rewarded nicely. 10% 3) The information plumbers: proficient at writing/reading reports for the MBA's, working in excel, calling who needs to be called, and moving stuff to the right space when the machine doesn't know how to (e.g. when the tech royalty messes up). 80%
Then there's the blue collar class. Most of the changes there have already begun to happen. The loss of jobs in manufacturing will be echoed in some other industries (e.g. trucking... we'll still need truckers, just not the same % of the population).
The standard solutions for these changes people propose is: 1) UBI: I believe this is a pipe dream that helps the tech royalty sleep at night. 2) Training: Covert Blue collar jobs into the while collar plumbing class. A nice idea, and has merit. The problem is white collar is office, and most blue collar employees _HATE_ the office. 3) Infrastructure: hearkening back to the United States CCC, beef up infrastructure projects to replace loss of jobs in the blue collar sector. This is not a bad idea, but has funding issues.
Any I missed?