# Is A Robot Coming For Your Job?



## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

*Is a robot coming for your job? Change comes quickly in the era of automation*
*Social Sharing*


McDowell may get her wish sooner than she realizes. Wally, an autonomous service robot designed by the San Jose-based robotics company Savioke, is among a growing army of robots that is reshaping our workplaces.

Is a robot coming for your job? | CBC News


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2019)

That's how I lost my job.
Happily retired now.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

I'm retired, but I worked as a case manager for people with disabilities. I am guessing by 2563 they will be able to prevent/correct these disabilities before they can develop case management robot.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

I was replaced by a robot that runs on AA batteries.


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## _Azrael (Nov 27, 2017)

I’m in the army. No real fear of being replaced by a robot.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Electraglide said:


> I was replaced by a robot that runs on AA batteries.


AA batteries? Not even C-cells? Man, that's just cold.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

But seriously, the threat of automation is greatest where the work/task to be done is predictable and repetitive. My brother in law worked in industrial robotics for GE/Siemens for a bit. As he pointed out to me, industrial robots are great if you hand them a formatted structured rack of pre-formatted parts to install on an assembly line. You can't hand them a bucket of bolts and expect them to identify which are in the desired orientation and which aren't, pick one out, rotate it to the desired orientation and install it. So if your work requires judgment or changes form constantly, it is in much less danger of automation, whether from something mechanical, or from a software replacement. 

Of course, that is entirely separate from whether management, or whomever they contract with, properly/realistically assesses just how _much_ judgment or predictability your job actually has. I read recently that some supermarkets are abandoning the self-checkout because they were encountering just too many problems. The premise behind self-checkout was that everything has a bar code, bar codes can be scanned, and all the checkout clerk really does is scan things and provide change, so why couldn't a machine do that. But that tends to underestimate the diversity of packaging, the gradual shift to less scannable forms of packaging, and the inevitable difficulties in reliably successful scanning of credit and debit cards. Self-checkouts regularly require assistance, and the question arises as to whether it processes as many customers per hour as a good checkout clerk does.

None of that is to suggest that no jobs are threatened by automation, and does not necessarily lead to companies that thought automation would save them gobs of money admitting that it might have blown up in their face and would have been better off with real live humans, but it may not be the tsunami that some have predicted.

Finally, mechanical robots break and software gets hacked or develops bugs, so there will always be a need for someone to take care of the technology that eradicated one kind of job but created another. When gramophones and records reduced the need for live musicians, they created work for folks to produce records, distribute them, sell them, and manufacture and repair gramophones. Self-tending technology does not exist.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

_Azrael said:


> I’m in the army. No real fear of being replaced by a robot.











Wanna bet. No scrambled eggs so this is a ground pounder.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

mhammer said:


> AA batteries? Not even C-cells? Man, that's just cold.


Wahl, I was told it was only part time when I took holidays. Little did I know. I started to get suspicious when the mega sized packs of batteries started to show up.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)




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## _Azrael (Nov 27, 2017)

Electraglide said:


> Wanna bet. No scrambled eggs so this is a ground pounder.


With limited application and flexibility.

But it sure looks good.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

_Azrael said:


> With limited application and flexibility.
> 
> But it sure looks good.


Beats all hell out of field stripping an Enfield or a FNC1. With a few of these and a couple of drones you could sit in the back of a Deuce and a half sipping coffee.


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## _Azrael (Nov 27, 2017)

Electraglide said:


> Beats all hell out of field stripping an Enfield or a FNC1. With a few of these and a couple of drones you could sit in the back of a Deuce and a half sipping coffee.


I’d spend all day swapping and recharging batteries, trying to find and repair the ones that got stuck or broke, cleaning, reloading. I’d need troops that could operate/program them and (if autonomous) monitor their performance. Troops that could transport them. Troops that could go into all the areas this robot couldn’t and do all the things that it can’t.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Now I realize that this is supposed to be a serious thread, (cough, cough) but I've just spent the better part of an hour playing phone tag with a computer generated voice with crappy music. God bless the Alberta Gov't.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Lemme ask you, did you feel that "your call was important to them"?

What I want to hear one day is an automated system that begins by asking you your first name, and then when they play the hold music, it's James Brown singing "Please, please please", but they insert your recorded name into the file, so that he sings "Mark, please don't go". THEN I might believe my call was important to them.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

_Azrael said:


> I’d spend all day swapping and recharging batteries, trying to find and repair the ones that got stuck or broke, cleaning, reloading...


I take it you work for a living and know how to operate a GO stick. I'd guess either CFB Edmonchuck or Wainwright.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Who ever thought we would have robot vacuum cleaners 50 years ago? Now, every appliance store/department have them.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Lemme ask you, did you feel that "your call was important to them"?
> 
> What I want to hear one day is an automated system that begins by asking you your first name, and then when they play the hold music, it's James Brown singing "Please, please please", but they insert your recorded name into the file, so that he sings "Mark, please don't go". THEN I might believe my call was important to them.


My call was important to Me. Only to find out that the person I have to speak to will be on holidays until the 3rd of April.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Steadfastly said:


> Who ever thought we would have robot vacuum cleaners 50 years ago? Now, every appliance store/department have them.


I remember when the youngest kid was the tv remote to change the channels.....all 4 of them. Now there is this....


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

As I retired, I could be already replaced... LOL !!!

Back in the seventies, James Taylor predicted that the incoming computer era would not cut any job ! It would force to upgrade workers knowledge and ability so they would run the computers. When we see the fiasco of the Zenith pay system...

I read a review about autodriving today : They do not work all the same, so the bottom line is "use these with caution".

I find it curious that automobile industry has been using chains for decades but still have workers at almost every station...

Last week "open AI" said they would not release text writing AI : this week a guy explained these are based on statistical analysis of existing texts and though you write the beginning of the text, you can in no way predict which way the robot will go as it could even write to the reverse ideas you were aiming at !

So, I do not believe I will ever be driven or nursed by a robot.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

https://gizmodo.com/fda-says-its-ok-to-have-robot-doctors-5978614
Back in the late 60's and early 70's you punched holes in cards for computers.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Electraglide said:


> https://gizmodo.com/fda-says-its-ok-to-have-robot-doctors-5978614
> Back in the late 60's and early 70's you punched holes in cards for computers.


Worth noting that the doctor is not being replaced by that device. What it provides is the ability for a doctor to examine a patient remotely. Not much different than robotic surgery which allows an actual surgeon to direct a machine in locations that might be hard to get to or require more precise movements that human hands can provide.

Once upon a time, string instruments didn't have tuners but had tuning pins, like you find on a piano. You could consider contemporary tuners as being "robotic".

As for holes punched in cards, I keep reminding people of a nightmare that is unique to people of a specific era. In that dream you imagine that you're merrily on your way to the computing center with your stack of precisely ordered punch cards, and trip, dropping them all.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)




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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Worth noting that the doctor is not being replaced by that device. What it provides is the ability for a doctor to examine a patient remotely. Not much different than robotic surgery which allows an actual surgeon to direct a machine in locations that might be hard to get to or require more precise movements that human hands can provide.
> 
> Once upon a time, string instruments didn't have tuners but had tuning pins, like you find on a piano. You could consider contemporary tuners as being "robotic".
> 
> As for holes punched in cards, I keep reminding people of a nightmare that is unique to people of a specific era. In that dream you imagine that you're merrily on your way to the computing center with your stack of precisely ordered punch cards, and trip, dropping them all.


I try to remind people of a time before there was computers and you actually had to think for yourselves. Sadly I still have, in a box somewhere, a punch that makes square holes and a bunch of 3"x6" cards covered with ones and zeros just waiting to be punched out.....and a rather large tube that says IBM on it.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

butterknucket said:


>











I liked his co-star better.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

NO DISASSEMBLE!!!


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

mhammer said:


> NO DISASSEMBLE!!!











DISASSEMBLE


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## Guest (Feb 28, 2019)

Electraglide said:


> Back in the late 60's and early 70's you punched holes in cards for computers.


Late 70's. In college, I spent a lot of class time punching those 'cocaine coloured computer cards' for a simple printout.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

laristotle said:


> Late 70's. In college, I spent a lot of class time punching those 'cocaine coloured computer cards' for a simple printout.


Used to punch the unemployment cards to get an extra dollar or two on the check. Had to fill out the cards and drop them off at the office. No, no,no,yes,no. No phoning in or e-filing.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

"Technology will be the second coming!
And it will hit us while we're looking for a man!"

Home Nucleonics ----- City
Devin Townsend / Strapping Young Lad


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

People were always telling me that no one would need private music teachers when the internet arrived. Hasn't hurt my business at all, I'm always as full as I need to be and my waiting list, though a little shorter than 15 years ago, is still ample enough. Once a robot can do my job (which I doubt), I'll likely be retired anyway.

My previous careers in live music performance, building maintenance and labour negotiations aren't likely to be roboticized, not to say there aren't other threats to them...the "live" has been taken out of music performance in a large and evolutionary way over several decades, but still exists in spite of it.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Mooh said:


> People were always telling me that no one would need private music teachers when the internet arrived. Hasn't hurt my business at all,


I was going to ask you that very question last week but I never got around to it. Glad it hasn't affected you.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Maybe, in my case. I think AI will be able to handle a certain portion of what I do. But I still also add value beyond that. How that is viewed is the key question.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Maybe, in my case. I think AI will be able to handle a certain portion of what I do. But I still also add value beyond that. How that is viewed is the key question.


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## 10409 (Dec 11, 2011)

I had a labourer that hated his job. He actually walked off the site one morning because he didn’t want to carry bundles up the ladder anymore.

The next day I bought a ladder hoist. It costs about 80 cents of gas a day and I never have to stop what I’m doing to drive it to buy smokes. Just have to invent an industrial outdoor roomba and never put up with lackeys again.


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

there will never be a robot to do my job unless they change the way construction is done on every level


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

I am retired and my job is to sit around and do what I please. Let's see a robot drink coffee and surf the net.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

mike_oxbig said:


> I had a labourer that hated his job. He actually walked off the site one morning because he didn’t want to carry bundles up the ladder anymore.
> 
> The next day I bought a ladder hoist. It costs about 80 cents of gas a day and I never have to stop what I’m doing to drive it to buy smokes. Just have to invent an industrial outdoor roomba and never put up with lackeys again.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Lemme ask you, did you feel that "your call was important to them"?
> 
> What I want to hear one day is an automated system that begins by asking you your first name, and then when they play the hold music, it's James Brown singing "Please, please please", but they insert your recorded name into the file, so that he sings "Mark, please don't go". THEN I might believe my call was important to them.


And why do they always, ALWAYS state that they are experiencing a higher than usual volume of calls?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

allthumbs56 said:


> And why do they always, ALWAYS state that they are experiencing a higher than usual volume of calls?


You really want to screw them up, when you finally get a person on the phone, start out with telling them that you are recording the call. If there is a problem ask to speak with their supervisor.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

Electraglide said:


> I was replaced by a robot that runs on AA batteries.


Coulda been worse. You coulda been replaced by one that runs on several D's


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Lincoln said:


> Coulda been worse. You coulda been replaced by one that runs on several D's


That would be about the size of it. At least 3 D cells, maybe 4.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2019)

Electraglide said:


> Let's see a robot drink coffee and surf the net.


It's when they find your booze stash that you'll have to worry.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

My job would kill a robot with boredom.


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## murraythek (Jun 1, 2013)

I currently work as a credit analyst for a large Canadian bank. My job is already showing signs of automation so my plan is to start retraining now as I'm nowhere near retirement age.

Will Robots Take My job?

My goal is to get into IT. Not exactly sure which discipline at this point.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2019)

murraythek said:


> My goal is to get into IT. Not exactly sure which discipline at this point.


Programing robots?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

laristotle said:


> It's when they find your booze stash that you'll have to worry.


I don't have one (anymore).


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## Jim DaddyO (Mar 20, 2009)

I feel pretty safe. I don't think they can program a machine to be cynical and sarcastic.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

[URL='https://willrobotstakemyjob.com/rankings' said:


> Will Robots Take My job?[/URL]
> 
> My goal is to get into IT. Not exactly sure which discipline at this point.


Unsticking the photocopier and fixing the coffee maker?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Jim DaddyO said:


> I feel pretty safe. I don't think they can program a machine to be cynical and sarcastic.


Vadsy?


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

I want a robot to skipper the boat while I fish, as long as it unquestioningly takes orders from me. It won't make sarcastic comments when I piss in the bailer or lose a fish, and it won't complain about getting up early.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)




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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Certainly one of the job categories that many are trying to replace with technology is drivers: taxi drivers, truck drivers, personal drivers, et al. "Self-driving" vehicles are big news these days. I doubt there will ever be _entirely_ self-driving vehicles within any of our lifetimes, simply because the number of situations and circumstances vehicles have to contend with are far too numerous. I can see smaller personal vehicles with optional AI-assisted movement being available for, say, seniors or mobility-impaired persons to go to the store/pharmacy/doctor/grandchildren, etc. on shorter largely residential routes. But I can also see self-driving taxis bringing people to the wrong destinations because of a typographical error (if phone-keyboard entry) or because of failures to wrestle with accent or speech flaws in voice recognition. I can also see vehicular incidents occurring because of poorly maintained roadways (infrastructure quality being an eternal issue, and matter of municipal debate), oddball streets (ever been on De L'Esplanade in downtown Montreal? changes one-way direction something like 5 times in 5 blocks), the unpredictability of wildlife, and electric/combustion fuel issues, to name but a few. Certainly *some* aspects of driving meet the criteria of "predictable and repetitive", but many don't, and progress in designing roadways that anticipate optimal functioning/use of autonomous vehicles will be VERY slow. Consequently, with the exception of a few select contexts, I expect future vehicles to have an _option_ of AI-assistance - think of it like a more advanced form of cruise-control - for when it is suitable, but to remain fundamentally driver-directed machines, because judgment will still be required.

Again, as noted earlier, that does not presume that whatever big money is behind the push for autonomous vehicles won't _underestimate_ the amount and variety of judgment required in driving.


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## jb welder (Sep 14, 2010)

If you haven't seen _Robot and Frank, _it's something to think about. I think robot 'assistants' are already more prevalent in Japan than here, but with less people having families to take care of them, it's something we may have in our futures.
Anyway, aside from the serious side of it, it's a pretty enjoyable flick.


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## sillyak (Oct 22, 2016)

No chance of a robot taking my job. It is highly dependent on the price of oil though. Made 40 k less in 2015 than I did in 2014, 50 k more in 2018 than in 2015, but may be back down 30-40k this year. Feast or famine.


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## Scotty (Jan 30, 2013)

No, but a 25 year old university grad is. 

He can have it


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Hmmmmm, I dunno.

Me and a dog maintain this equipment. I feed the dog and the dog keeps me away from it. A great synergy. Good luck getting a computer to do _that!










_


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Certainly one of the job categories that many are trying to replace with technology is drivers: taxi drivers, truck drivers, personal drivers, et al. "Self-driving" vehicles are big news these days. I doubt there will ever be _entirely_ self-driving vehicles within any of our lifetimes, simply because the number of situations and circumstances vehicles have to contend with are far too numerous. I can see smaller personal vehicles with optional AI-assisted movement being available for, say, seniors or mobility-impaired persons to go to the store/pharmacy/doctor/grandchildren, etc. on shorter largely residential routes. But I can also see self-driving taxis bringing people to the wrong destinations because of a typographical error (if phone-keyboard entry) or because of failures to wrestle with accent or speech flaws in voice recognition. I can also see vehicular incidents occurring because of poorly maintained roadways (infrastructure quality being an eternal issue, and matter of municipal debate), oddball streets (ever been on De L'Esplanade in downtown Montreal? changes one-way direction something like 5 times in 5 blocks), the unpredictability of wildlife, and electric/combustion fuel issues, to name but a few. Certainly *some* aspects of driving meet the criteria of "predictable and repetitive", but many don't, and progress in designing roadways that anticipate optimal functioning/use of autonomous vehicles will be VERY slow. Consequently, with the exception of a few select contexts, I expect future vehicles to have an _option_ of AI-assistance - think of it like a more advanced form of cruise-control - for when it is suitable, but to remain fundamentally driver-directed machines, because judgment will still be required.
> 
> Again, as noted earlier, that does not presume that whatever big money is behind the push for autonomous vehicles won't _underestimate_ the amount and variety of judgment required in driving.


Old news....


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## Distortion (Sep 16, 2015)

No Robot in it's right mind would do mine.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)




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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

cheezyridr said:


> there will never be a robot to do my job unless they change the way construction is done on every level


Anyone who has worked in construction will verify this. Random shit happening every minute. A machine can never adapt. Flip down the helmet, burn a rod, everything changed around you when you lift the helmet again.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Robots are certainly taking over the transportation industry


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

KapnKrunch said:


> Anyone who has worked in construction will verify this. Random shit happening every minute. A machine can never adapt. Flip down the helmet, burn a rod, everything changed around you when you lift the helmet again.


To be accurately fair to humans, the REASON that everything is different when you lift the helmet is BECAUSE of the humans around you, both from the start of the project to the now instant. The environment under automation is likely to be orders of magnitude less chaotic as the automation will only really need to deal with weather and, possibly, natural environment randomness. Sorry puny human :-(.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

The general idea of robots, as I understand it, is to free up time for humans to do what they want.

Yet here we are.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

Budda said:


> The general idea of robots, as I understand it, is to free up time for humans to do what they want.
> 
> Yet here we are.


“Yet?” Stated on a mostly pass-time oriented guitar forum? Hm.


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## reckless toboggan (Mar 9, 2019)

Robots taking my job? I don't know.

Can a robot be a stay-at-home alcoholic musician?


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

LexxM3 said:


>


I think your dog may be autistic


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

reckless toboggan said:


> Robots taking my job? I don't know. Can a robot be a stay-at-home alcoholic musician?


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

LexxM3 said:


> To be accurately fair to humans, the REASON that everything is different when you lift the helmet is BECAUSE of the humans around you, both from the start of the project to the now instant. The environment under automation is likely to be orders of magnitude less chaotic as the automation will only really need to deal with weather and, possibly, natural environment randomness. Sorry puny human :-(.


*Have you worked on a large construction site?*

Let's say 600 tradesmen (working days) and 200 working evenings for three years building a paper mill. It's easy too see that the idea of complete control is a joke. You will spend more time trying to adapt the machines to unexpected events than it takes for people to just do it. The project was completed ahead of schedule abd below budget.

That said, the mill produces a piece of paper as wide as the highway the distance of Brandon to Winnipeg every eight hours. I walked through the whole place without being challenged. I saw four guys looking at computers in one room and two guys in another. Yep somebody lost their job. But when the machine breaks, do you really think somebody will program a robot to repair it. Or will they just call the union?

Even your local garage has such a level of unpredictability that a robot will never replace the mechanic. Repetitive work maybe; unique situations, never.

As @cheezyridr said: "*Everything* will have to change on *every* level."

Edit: sorry, I have to ask, what do you do for a living?


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

KapnKrunch said:


> *Have you worked on a large construction site?*
> 
> Let's say 600 tradesmen (working days) and 200 working evenings for three years building a paper mill. It's easy too see that the idea of complete control is a joke. You will spend more time trying to adapt the machines to unexpected events than it takes for people to just do it. The project was completed ahead of schedule abd below budget.
> 
> ...


You're assuming that robots will want paper and to work on your cars ......................... silly human


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

KapnKrunch said:


> *Have you worked on a large construction site?*
> 
> Let's say 600 tradesmen (working days) and 200 working evenings for three years building a paper mill. It's easy too see that the idea of complete control is a joke. You will spend more time trying to adapt the machines to unexpected events than it takes for people to just do it. The project was completed ahead of schedule abd below budget.
> 
> ...


You are missing the big picture. Almost every scale and operational complexity you described exists either to deal with or because of the human involvement. It was the only practical way to make progress. Machinery at scale will have no such requirements. Yes, the machinery will need to deal with environment/weather and yes the machinery will need to deal with its own calibration and mechanical wear issues, but that is a tiny fraction of complexity caused by/accommodating humans for the core work. 

I am an engineer, a pretty good one I gather from observations by myself and others over the last 30 years (but with plenty of daily or even hourly failings). I don’t directly design systems to replace humans, but I have designed and do design many products, systems, and processes with huge number of infinitesimally tiny yet absolutely critical details to deal with human failings, both direct/immediate as well as accumulated over time. Almost everything we do is both for and because of humans, both the good and the excruciatingly frustrating.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

@LexxM3 lol. Engineer was my first guess.




LexxM3 said:


> Yes, the machinery will need to deal with environment/weather and yes the machinery will need to deal with its own calibration and mechanical wear issues, but that is a tiny fraction of complexity caused by/accommodating humans for the core work.


I am calling complete bullshit on this statement. Whatever your line of engineering is, I am guessing that it has nothing to do with dirt-under-the-fingernails construction at any level. 

You gonna program a robot to re-model your bathroom? Multiply that times a hundred for a commercial project and a thousand for a major industrial job. You are the one who is missing the picture. Machines won't do unique jobs, no matter how smart the engineer is, because it ain't practical.

If people are such a fuck-up, the engineers (people) will never anticipate all the unforeseen problems, errors, omissions, etc. Some dumb labourer will be digging up some narrow spot between two buildings where you forgot to put a pipe.


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

e


LexxM3 said:


> You are missing the big picture. Almost every scale and operational complexity you described exists either to deal with or because of the human involvement. It was the only practical way to make progress. Machinery at scale will have no such requirements. Yes, the machinery will need to deal with environment/weather and yes the machinery will need to deal with its own calibration and mechanical wear issues, but that is a tiny fraction of complexity caused by/accommodating humans for the core work.
> 
> I am an engineer, a pretty good one I gather from observations by myself and others over the last 30 years (but with plenty of daily or even hourly failings). I don’t directly design systems to replace humans, but I have designed and do design many products, systems, and processes with huge number of infinitesimally tiny yet absolutely critical details to deal with human failings, both direct/immediate as well as accumulated over time. Almost everything we do is both for and because of humans, both the good and the excruciatingly frustrating.



example: 

i work at a dupont research facility. the particular building i work in produces something with a machine, of which there are only 2 in the world. they have decided that shutting that machine down would cost too much money, so the entire building, and all of it's systems are being renovated around 2 functioning labs. my employer is a sub contractor to a subcontractor. 
installing new equipment has to be coordinated across all the trades, plus the general contractor, plus the safety people, plus the engineers, plus dupont. all of this happens in a building that is over 100 yrs old, and there are no as-built drawings that exist. there are environmental as well as biological hazardous wastes to deal with. systems are packed tightly into small areas in and around operating systems. a robot can't do all that.


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## Guest (Mar 10, 2019)

Computers will have to design engineering computers?


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

LexxM3 said:


> “Yet?” Stated on a mostly pass-time oriented guitar forum? Hm.


Automation doesn't free up time for us to do fun stuff. It could, but it doesn't. To expand would put me into the political section, which I avoid.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

Budda said:


> Automation doesn't free up time for us to do fun stuff. It could, but it doesn't. To expand would put me into the political section, which I avoid.


I do know what you mean, but it is ultimately a matter of perspective. We (your and I, not necessarily everyone in the world) don’t need to hunt and gather our own food, so theoretically that gives us time to chat on the guitar forum instead of hunting; that’s all I mean , and automation is definitely involved in that outcome. I won’t push you into the politics aspect, but know that I understood what meant as well, just being a bit lighthearted .


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Aaah. I misunderstood then!


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

cheezyridr said:


> e
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I understand the point about humans being good at ultimately dealing with highly complex and ambiguous environments. Understand it too well. I am not saying a change-over is going to be either clean, fast, or good for society, at least at our (human) population growth levels and political [non-]maturity. I am just saying that the problems with the change-over you are describing are primarily root-caused by us (humans) in the first place. That’s just a statement of fact/observation, it’s not a condemnation of humanity — I like humans (not all of them, don’t get cocky), which is why I tend to make fun of us as much as I possibly can .


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

laristotle said:


> Computers will have to design engineering computers?


Design/engineering automation has been happening from day one and is accelerating. But we are nowhere near where it needs to be, evidenced by a whole lot of crap that’s designed out there every day — e.g. anyone remember complaints about this site’s certificates and slowdowns? LOL

Obligatory: I for one welcome our engineering robotic overlords.

What I’d really like to see is management robots. I don’t mean what you’re all picturing, cold automatons. I mean a robotic manager that we can all say is a “best manager I’ve ever had” and mean it. There’s a job that a) humans are almost universally bad at, and b) a massive hardship all around, both to the manager and employee. Or maybe politicians first, hm ...


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

KapnKrunch said:


> If people are such a fuck-up, the engineers (people) will never anticipate all the unforeseen problems, errors, omissions, etc. Some dumb labourer will be digging up some narrow spot between two buildings where you forgot to put a pipe.


I know you’re passionate about your position, so I am unlikely to respond further on the same circular line just because it won’t be constructive, not out of disrespect. But ... why would you think automation would make the example pipe error in the first place? That seems like a human-type of error, no? If you understand the point of this example, then you’ll understand my entire point, but not otherwise.

P.S.


KapnKrunch said:


> @LexxM3 lol. Engineer was my first guess.


Thank you, I am honoured to hear it is that obvious.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

LexxM3 said:


> That seems like a human-type of error, no? If you understand the point of this example, then you’ll understand my entire point, but not otherwise.]


Of course its a human error. What gave you the idea that the machine did it? Thats exactly my point! 

Machines will never be able to adapt to the unpredictable. And engineers will never be able to predict the unpredictable. 

It's not a "circular argument". It's repetition. I have been saying the same thing over and over again. You have never experienced the random aspects of construction, so you don't get it. That's why I took offence to your original statement, that machines will remove the difficulties caused by people *on a construction site*. It won't happen. It's technological pie in the sky. *ON A CONSTRUCTION SITE*!

You are talking about something else, that's why I don't "understand your entire point". You're right. Forget it.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

I can't see them doing my old job - case management for people with intellectual disabilities.


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## LexxM3 (Oct 12, 2009)

@KapnKrunch, we seem to actually agree — humans cause the majority of the complexities at a construction site (but, actually, everywhere). The difference is that you reach the conclusion that automation will never be able to deal with that, and I am reaching a longer term conclusions that it will do so, and the simplest approach is mostly likely by eliminating increasingly more of the human troublemakers from the entire end-to-end process.

As an alternate example, it is pretty well accepted that the primary current impediment to large scale deployment of autonomous vehicles (say, for example, cargo transports) is the continued presence of human driven vehicles in the shared environment — it is essentially the same problem with ultimately the same solution (which I hate, by the way, as I love driving). In fact, the construction problems you’re describing are much simpler problems for automation than autonomous vehicles on open roads because a) constructions sites are relatively closed systems (vs open public roads) and b) because the time for a typical construction is much shorter relative to the time it will take to change the culture of human driving and that, in turn, gives drastically more opportunities to try the next iteration of automation.

Anyway, since this forum is biased toward 50+ year olds, most of us don’t have to worry too much for our jobs, but I don’t think that’s true for the next generation and the one after that. And it is not going to be pleasant if we don’t prepare them. You decide what that means for which assumption bias is a better approach ...

Here is a random fun construction automation progress update: Aussie bricklaying robot takes on tradies, building three-bed house in 72 hours - SmartCompany

PS @KapnKrunch, I don’t violently (or at all) disagree with you about the complexity and the not ready state of the art of automation. Note that I resurrected this thread by posting how a state of the art AI misclassified a cat as a dog — there is plenty of room for progress here.


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## Private Hudson (Jan 27, 2018)

KapnKrunch said:


> Of course its a human error. What gave you the idea that the machine did it? Thats exactly my point!
> 
> Machines will never be able to adapt to the unpredictable. And engineers will never be able to predict the unpredictable.
> 
> ...


Artificial Intelligence will never have to be 100%. Just like walking down the street is not 100% safe and predictable. Autonomous autos are not 100 and will never be 100%. But we know they are coming. We all manage risk every day. Machines will be able to manage risk and make predictions far better than people because we can not process masses of data ... without machines. 

Predictive Analytics is alive and well right now. They use it in the states to allocate cops in areas where they think crime WILL be high. Artificial intelligence is just the next step, creating models to give the predictive process hints. Artificial Intelligence feeds the results back into the equation, as data. 

Robots are coming. I know. I am from the future. Lol


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

OK Let's assume robots take most of existing jobs... almost nobody work... who earn the money to make a living ?


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Private Hudson said:


> Robots are coming. I know. I am from the future. Lol


Hudson: "Well that's just effin great! Whatta we gonna do now?!"

Little Girl: "We'd better go inside. They mostly come out at night. Mostly." 

Edit: As I recall, Vasquez had to weld that door manually. You can always expect the unexpected on the jobsite. Only people can respond in time. Those automatic guns in the deleted scenes were cool... still installed by people.


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## reckless toboggan (Mar 9, 2019)

Robert1950 said:


>


I lol'd.


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## _Azrael (Nov 27, 2017)

mawmow said:


> OK Let's assume robots take most of existing jobs... almost nobody work... who earn the money to make a living ?


What happened when the backhoe put ditch diggers out of work?

What happened when the combine put crop pickers out of work?

What happened when the processed foods and the washing machine put housewives out of work?


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

_Azrael said:


> What happened when the backhoe put ditch diggers out of work?
> 
> What happened when the combine put crop pickers out of work?
> 
> What happened when the processed foods and the washing machine put housewives out of work?


I suppose you mean the workers found other jobs... But what if we assume there will be very few jobs for humans ?


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

But professional language translation services? Computers are getting better at that as time goes on. In the future??


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Robert1950 said:


> But professional language translation services? Computers are getting better at that as time goes on. In the future??


Depends on who is being translated, and the context of the actual discourse/text to be translated. A great deal of what humans say tends to be non-literal - another kettle of fish, a horse of a different colour, know what I mean, nudge-nudge, wink-wink? And translating that requires understanding of the broader context of what is being said. That contextual understanding is generally unavailable to any translation device/app. Of course, some discourse/text IS amenable to machine translation because it is intended to be largely context-free.

Socio-linguist Basil Bernstein distinguished between what he termed _restricted_ and _elaborated_ codes. The latter is exemplifiied by most textbooks and technical documents, where all language is used literally, and most, if not all, contextual information is directly provided. It is communication that stands well on its own, and does not require much knowledge about the individual/source providing it. Restricted code is best exemplified by conversation between adolescents, which is deliberately engineered to be opaque to anyone outside the individuals' social circle. As our culture becomes increasingly "adolo-centric" (my own term for it), and tries to exalt whatever matters to adolescents and young adults, restricted code becomes more and more the norm. So, in some respects, the optimal time for machine translation would have been maybe 50 years ago. As time goes on, the computational demands placed upon machine translation are escalating, as the tendency to use restricted code, even in official communication, increases.

That said, for simple, largely context-free, utterances, machine translation has gotten better. I recall a NY Times article from about 25-30 years back, where the author was trying to depict the state of pocket translator devices at the time. He was at a Spanish restaurant and wanted to ask the waiter if they took credit cards. He typed in the English phrase, and the translation device spat out (in Spanish): "Do you make to take credit playing cards?". I'm sure you can imagine the waiter's facial expression.


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2019)




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## _Azrael (Nov 27, 2017)

mawmow said:


> I suppose you mean the workers found other jobs... But what if we assume there will be very few jobs for humans ?


Well, at some point in time I assume we’ll rise up, murder our overlords, burn everything down around us, redistribute wealth and make new rules that attempt to make it impossible to return to the former status quo.

But, I don’t think we’re there yet.


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## jb welder (Sep 14, 2010)

As far as construction goes, I've heard they are building houses inside warehouses in the 'Peg (which are then moved to the yard site). This could be made robotic in a closed environment like this.
But there will always be some that can only be built on-site, which will require human adaptability. 

However, soon people will be hybrids, so not only will the robots be taking the human jobs, but the humans will be taking the robot jobs.


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## Hamstrung (Sep 21, 2007)




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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

jb welder said:


> As far as construction goes, I've heard they are building houses inside warehouses in the 'Peg (which are then moved to the yard site). This could be made robotic in a closed environment like this.
> But there will always be some that can only be built on-site, which will require human adaptability.
> 
> However, soon people will be hybrids, so not only will the robots be taking the human jobs, but the humans will be taking the robot jobs.


We already had at least two or three such companies in Quebec for at least forty years. They probably will not get robots since they offer many different models and weather never interferes with their work so that their productivity is highly predictable.


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## Guest (Apr 3, 2019)

Hackers have weaponized a Tesla
A Chinese research lab tricks a Tesla Model S into driving into opposing traffic 

_Now, never mind that Tesla employed the always-convincing “we already knew about it” defence — officially, _
_the company told Forbes magazine it had already addressed the loss of control before Keen’s researchers _
_informed them of the vulnerability. The most important thing is that these hackers were all wearing white hats, _
_and the opposing lane the Model S was steering into was in a research facility, empty of oncoming traffic. _
_No one was hurt._

_What is truly astonishing about this exploit, though, is that said hackers didn’t actually have to hack into the Tesla’s _
_computer to send it careening into oncoming traffic. They didn’t have to do anything to its Autopilot system. They _
_didn’t have exploit over-the-air vulnerabilities — that’s geek-speak for wirelessly gaining access to a car’s computers. _
_In fact, they didn’t have to do anything electronic at all. They just had to paint three little squares on the road._


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