Jobless future countdown: when are these jobs going to be taken over by AI or robots?

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In 2013 Oxford University published a report on the Future of Employment in which they estimated that 47% of jobs in the USA risk disappearing in the next 20 years (by 2033) due to computerisation and automation.

The OECD released a similar report last year, in which they seriously downplay the potential of automation. They claimed that only 9% of jobs in the G20 countries were at risk of disappearing, ranging from 6% in South Korea to 12% in Germany.

This is utterly ridiculous. I have argued before that it is far more likely to be 90% of present jobs that will disappear by 2035. I am going to make some predictions for a few jobs that could very well disappear within the next 5 to 10 years.

Within 5 years

- Translator/interpreter: automated translations are getting better constantly. A few years ago, free translators like Google or Bing Translate could not produce a decent translation, but today we could argue that they are making sentences that are grammatically more accurate than some (uneducated) native speakers. It will only take a few more years before machine translations become as good as professional human translations. Not all languages are equal though. It seems that at present translations between English and Spanish are better than between English and French, for instance. Translations to/from English are also considerably better than between other languages, because these translators first translate to English. But that's only temporary. AI can already recognise voices and speak very well, so as soon as written translations will be perfect, spoken translations should be as well. If you are a student, do not pursue a career as a translator or interpreter if you do not want to waste your time! Even language teacher isn't safe as there are already plenty of apps to learn languages that are more fun than going to school, and they are going to improve dramatically, especially with Virtual Reality simulating real life conversations. If you are interested in languages, choose linguistics instead, as that's still beyond AI capabilities.

- Call centre staff (hotlines, customer support, etc.): because AI is getting so good at recognising and understanding human speech, many companies have already adopted computerised call centres. Some (dumb) customers apparently don't even realise they are talking to a computer. Anyway, in most call centres humans are just reading pre-made answers from a sheet, so it won't change much except that over time, as it learns, AI will be able to answer vastly more questions and much faster. AI call centres also mean no waiting time.


Within 10 years

- Truck driver: Self driving trucks may get less publicity than cars, but they may be closer to hitting the road as there is big money involved. Transport companies are always trying to cut costs and getting rid of truck drivers is the ultimate step to take. Automated trucks have been tested on roads in Europe and the USA for many years and it's only a matter of local legislation until they start operating. As truck drivers currently cause a lot of accidents (mostly because of drivers who clock in too many hours and fall asleep), many countries will be eager to have safer roads with automated trucks.

- Taxi driver: Same situation. Singapore already has self-driving taxis. Tokyo will launch a major fleet for the Tokyo Olympics in two years. Uber and other companies are eager to cut costs by getting rid of the middle man (the driver). I think that it will take a bit longer before all human taxi drivers disappear compared to truck drivers because (older) customers will first need to get used to ordering taxis with their smartphones and some people may not trust self driving cars in the first few years that they start operating.


Within 10 to 20 years

The big revolution will take place once humanoid robots will have become so realistic, intelligent, well-spoken and skilled with their hands that they will be able to perform any human job. That will take a bit longer (not that long), but once they are ready it's the end of all jobs as we know them. Anything that will be left will be social activities, volunteering, hobbies, or anything that anyone is willing to do to avoid being bored.
 
Too optimistic. They don't take into account human psychology! self driving cars can be hacked and instead of going to destination end up upside down in the side road.

i think assembly lines, agriculture have a better chance of robotizing
 
Interesting that degrees such as any computer (science,network,forensics) will have larger market value within time but however it adds more competition to the market which is both bad and great. Computers can read human languages but still need to translated since there language is completely different to ours, they do have protocols for this but still it takes "energy" (not the right word but it's in English) to compute. For the no i really don't think machines will take over every market place due to resources that are needed by humans to create, maintain and repair robots. Unlike living beings robots and PCs cannon't repair it's self nor can it automatically create a "immune" system in order for it to operate within the human environment. For the yes there will be bigger and better improvements on robots and coding which can operate them to do tasks. It is also possible within the next 20 years that robots can create other robots which will take all of the jobs.

Sounds like something out of the terminator, hopefully our skynet won't kill us
 
A few years ago i have read an article in Italian where it was said that a great revolution is expected in medicine between 2025-2030. If I'm not mistaken, the idea was that with the help of nanotechnology, injecting microscopic computers into the human body that will travel inside our bodies through blood vessels. Then, what you have to do is to find a server, and these microcomputers will transmit all the data collected, will make a diagnosis accompanied by a recipe with the necessary medicines.

BTW, rate the Google translation from Italian in English, lol.
 
more jobs will eventuated when globalization and the stopping of the destruction of the world's middle-class ceases ..............rich and poor do not improve a nation only on the wealth of the middle-class will it be better for all
 
We are officially entering a new era. Yesterday OpenAI revealed their new product called Sora (Sky in Japanese) which generates video based on text.

There will indeed be a timeline where many of us will lose their jobs, until new jobs will be created with AI in mind. I just don't think economics works like that, it's based on demand and supply. If most of us are jobless then there will be no demand for the supplies. It has to keep going as a wheel. We have to evolve in this new situation.

The era of monkey coders/surface Software Developers is ending, the era of true hardcore OG Computer Scientists/Software Engineers is coming back, just like it was from 60-90. These guys who know how Computer really works, Algorithms work, will be the elite in society.

Also, space exploration should be advanced. The earth is being heavily exploited for its resources resulting in the disbalance of its ecosystem.
 
Space exploration should be advanced?

We need to control the population growth in certain parts of the world because there is already heavy unemployment in many countries. This will only get worse not to mention floods, droughts and other natural disasters causing massive social and economic dislocation.

We cannot plant millions of people on other planets.
 

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