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user-inactivated  ·  3391 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What would the short and long term effects of automization/ replacing human low skill workers with robots be?

There are always going to be physical jobs that can only be done by a brain with hands attached. Machines are not adaptive enough to do some of the low-end stuff that makes everything else possible. Even if there was a robot that could drywall a house in a day, someone is going to have to be there to clean up after, set up before, and do the math to buy the parts. Someone is going to have to deliver the robot, set it up to begin the work, etc. Someone is going to have to see a need that can be automated, figure out how, build the robot, program it and teach others how to use it.

The printing press was going to cause mass unemployment. The electric light was going to cause mass unemployment. The automobile was going to cause mass unemployment. Computers were going to cause mass unemployment. All these tools are going to be used in ways that we are too rooted in our own headspace to see coming. These techs are going to be used to create things and services that most of us here on this site will laugh at when introduced, then 10 years later get frustrated when they don't work. The interesting thing is that if we automate all these "low end" workers, what is that going to do to the trade deficit? Most of the low end manufacturing that the US takes advantage of is not in the US; it is in China and India etc.

There is going to be an interesting time when the baby boomers finally start dying off and the millennials move in because with so few boomers retiring on time it will be the children of the millennials that run with all these new ways of doing things. 3D printing alone is amazing and is going to change EVERYTHING we do, and they are teaching that in classes here where I live.