I’ve been called paranoid more than once for my belief that we are on the verge of a major problem. I’ve even received a bit of hate due to the fact that I believe that we need to take steps to prevent the rich from getting richer. I’ve even been called crazy for stating my belief that a large number of people will lose their jobs to robots over the next few years.
So today I am going to show you a few articles that I have encountered recently. I didn’t search these articles out; they either appeared on my feed or were shared with me by others.
What would you do if you suddenly lost your job? There is a factory in my old home of Paducah, Kentucky that has laid off 100 people so far. You can read about it here
While you’re reading this, ask yourself how you would survive if you were one of the ones affected?
Over the past two decades people have mocked me for my decision to work in an assortment of fast food restaurants. No “normal” adult would ever sink themselves so low as to work a job designed for kids, I’ve been told. Even when I told them that I didn’t have a choice, they continued to mock me.
To those people, read this. It very well might be your future if you don’t wake up.
Another thing I’ve been mocked about is my opinions on medical insurance. I don’t have medical insurance and neither does my daughter. Many of my friends and family cannot afford medical insurance. Like me, they only go to the doctor when they are in desperate need because it is so expensive. Due to the expensive nature of American health care, poorer people are dying. Here are the numbers:
Last but not least, I’ve been told to remove my tinfoil hat because I have stated that over the next several years cashiers, truck drivers, and factory workers will be replaced by machines. After stumbling upon this article, I think I’ll keep my hat in place.
This is why we need to stand up and take steps now to protect ourselves. We need to learn how to generate an income that isn’t dependent upon a public job, and we need to STOP making the rich richer!
Wake up, people!
Dear Annie,
From one tinfoil hat to the other;):
Spot on luv. Over here (old university town in the north of the Netherlands) supermarket cashiers and cashiers in several other stores have mostly been replaced by self scan services (yes: a robot). So have some pharmacies (your subscription meds await you in a kind of vault, and you take yours out with a personal code). Some food delivery services are fully automated too (little electric cars without drivers). So far the latter haven’t been terribly succesful though, mainly because of the huge amount of bike riders in our streets. Colliding with a robot car that can’t (yet) anticipate manouvres from humans isn’t much fun.
So yes, we are losing job opportunities left and right. This brave new world can actually be quite interesting and fun. For one thing: some services have actually improved, and some prices have come down because machines tend to be cheaper than people. But this is fun ONLY if you can afford the services offered, and are on the ‘programming’ side of things (and if you don’t get run over by a robot car). If you ‘re in in any kind of manual labour, well…….
Job opportunities are just one part of the problem though. Not being able to control AI is quite another and very justified concern.
Take care and lots of love,
Carolina
Spot on, Carolina!
This is only an improvement “if you can afford the services offered.” Considering how many people are forced to do manual labor to survive, I suspect that this could get ugly once the pieces are in place.
Right now I am seeing four industries that are in danger. The fast food industry (cashiers and cooks are slowly being replaced at this moment). The factory industry (they’ve been slowly replacing workers with robotics for decades now), the brick-and-mortar store industry (several companies are experimenting with automated checkouts, restocking robotics, and other devices), and the trucking industry (self-driving vehicles). Those four industries alone could force millions out of work, millions that will lack the skills to acquire another position (if there are enough jobs to go around by then).
Imagine what will happen to the economy when those people lose their jobs? I suspect it may be worse than when the Great Depression caused so many to be out of work due to the population increase since 1929.
As for AI, my concerns about that are the primary reason I practically bullied my daughter into taking some computer classes when she was in high school. Those who lack computer skills will be at a serious disadvantage. I have preached that “those who control the computers will control the world” to my inner circle since before the turn of the century.
The thing is, it’s the Big Money that controls the computers these days. They are the ones who pay the wages of the geeks who are running the systems. I honestly doubt that many of them will want to risk angering their masters. Did you know you can get more jail time from hacking than you can if you kill someone these days? There’s a reason for that. Big Money wants to keep the geeks afraid and under their control.
While I like being able to order something online and have it delivered, and I don’t mind computers per se, I have been looking around lately with an ever-growing concern.
Annie
Another excellent post, Annie, that captures the reality of today. You aren’t paranoid- you are a realist. While there has always been the obscenely rich, the wealth distribution today is horrendous. Sadly, the 99% of us have been dumbed-down by the horrible public education and kept busy with mind-numbing lifestyles of trying to scrape by and raise our families. We have been distracted from seeing what is really going on, from the changes Congress has made/is making laws that allow the billionaires to mulitply their incomes while the middle class erodes. The deck is stacked against us. Candidates like Warren and Sanders are trying to wake the 99% to see the injustices that are taking place and now the billionaires are crying ‘foul’. Bloomberg throwing his billion-dollar hat into the ring so Warren is stopped, so he doesn’t lose one dime of his billions. Give me a break.
I agree, Essie. The thing is, we’re virtually powerless to do anything about it on our own but if enough of us stop giving them the money that they are using to do the things that they are doing, it will slow them down if not stop them.