Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[Matt Birkholz]

On Wed, 2018-06-13 at 16:17 -0700, Eric Oyen wrote:
> Ah yes,  technical humor!

I thought it was "meta humor", but I'll consider it a success.  Thanks!

> Anyway, here’s a different take on jobs, robots and the rest of us.
> 
> Robots are always going to need periodic updating, maintenance and upgrades. 
> [...]

And shares in the companies that will make these outrageous profits can
be bought by anyone (but do wait for the stock bubble to pop).

How's this for a "take" on jobs:

   Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle
   accident and the collapse of civilization.
   - G. Bernard Shaw

>  So, those of us who are technically competent will still end up with jobs 
> [...]

I know more physicists and engineers who went on to law, high-finance,
biotech (in rapid succession in one case), and beer- and wine-
making (two individual cases) than those who stayed where they were.

>  You will also have the hobbyist tinkerer (like me) who will be[...]

...who will be (speaking collectively) the locus of the next disruptive
technology and, compounded, the singularity.  Pick your approach vector
carefully.

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Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[techlists]

I call this thread dead.  

My apologies to the list.  

I had not idea this would turn out like this.

On 2018-06-13 14:23, David Schwartz wrote:

> How can this NOT be a political topic? 
> 
> It's about jobs. Jobs that are being replaced by automation. At companies who 
> are really only interested in PROFITS, not the quality of life of their 
> employees or what costs they dump on the community as a result of 
> under-paying workers or laying them off. They just don't care. They answer to 
> their shareholders -- a growing percentage of whom are foreigners -- not the 
> communities where they set up shop and employ their workers. 
> 
> Profits are mostly a function of the economy and current political winds. 
> 
> It makes no sense to talk about jobs -- current or future -- when you're 
> swimming in a job pool that's being flushed down the drain by the very people 
> who you elected to keep your job intact! 
> 
> Our POLITICIANS just handed the 100 largest corporations (their shareholders) 
> and the wealthiest families in America a $500 billion "gift" that they SAID 
> was going to be used to "create jobs." 
> 
> Yet all that windfall has been used for so far has been stock buy-backs, and 
> lay-offs preceeding the movement of these same jobs to countries with lower 
> labor costs, since now that they've got all the money they need to afford 
> huge capital investments off-shore without pissing off their shareholders. 
> 
> If you're not part of that tiny sliver of the US population (income or net 
> asset holdings of 7-figures or more), your elected officials are not 
> representing YOUR current or future needs. (I'm not!) 
> 
> Shareholders don't give a crap about WHERE the companies they own employ 
> people, or where those employees come from! They only care about profits, 
> share price, and dividends. Corporations have a fidicuary responsibility to 
> their shareholders. PERIOD. Not even their employees. Which is why 
> corporations are resisting efforts to reform or immigration laws -- the 
> current immigraion laws are working very well for them and are HIGHLY 
> PROFITABLE! 
> 
> SHAREHOLDERS want automation. Why? Because MORE PROFITS. And a reduced need 
> to worry about employees of all stripes and colors. 
> 
> And who cares what CitiGroup says anyway? They've just been given $50 billion 
> in tax cuts; fines levied against them for breaking the law have been 
> dropped; regulations supposedly costing them profits (because they're 
> designed to protect consumers) have been eliminated; and they just reported 
> their most profitable quarter in history! Yet lots of folks seem to feel 
> sorry for them for whatever reason while their customers and employees are 
> getting screwed. 
> 
> What I don't understand is why anybody who's not a shareholder in any of 
> these corporations is defending them or the latest tax policies handing their 
> shareholders HUGE stock growth and dividends. 
> 
> The Fed just announced an uptick in interest rates this morning, with two 
> more expected by the end of the year. Because they say inflation is on the 
> rise. This hits EVERYBODY in the pocketbook, not just the wealthy. 
> 
> For most people, our costs are going up, but not our wages. If we're lucky, 
> we've got a few years before our jobs are replaced by robots. By then there 
> won't be any unemployment insurance or welfare, because clearly we lost our 
> jobs because we're just "too lazy". And there won't be enough tax revenues to 
> support any kind of "social safety net". So if you can't afford to live 
> today, you probably won't have any savings to help when you lose your job and 
> cannot find another one for a while. 
> 
> Why is anybody even paying attention to warnings from CitiGroup about robots 
> replacing their workers? There's absolutely nothing WE THE PEOPLE can do 
> about it if our "elected officials" keep ignoring what WE need and instead 
> implement tax and economic policies that benefit Corporations instead. 
> 
> We in the tech industry like to think that we are in some pivotal way 
> responsible for guiding the future of America. That we can ignore politics. 
> That we can cheer on corporate malfeasance as long as it's not the folks 
> paying OUR salary. That we can ignore the INDIRECT COSTS TO SOCIETY that 
> arise from the technology we're paid to create that will inexorably lead to 
> our own professional demise. 
> 
> Sooner or later we need to look at the economy and our political environment 
> with the same critical eye that we use to build our software. 
> 
> In the mean time, rest assured that our entire frigging economy is being run 
> by people selected by less than 10% of the population (the % of registered 
> voters who tend to vote in primaries), becuase the rest are so cynical and 
> resigned that they think their voice doesn't matter. 
> 
> And the ones who do vote these days ... are tending more and more to be 
> people with the most extreme views in society 

Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[Eric Oyen]

Ah yes,  technical humor!

Anyway, here’s a different take on jobs, robots and the rest of us.

Robots are always going to need periodic updating, maintenance and upgrades. 
So, those of us who are technically competent will still end up with jobs, just 
in a different specialty. You will also have the hobbyist tinkerer (like me) 
who will be doing much of the work on his own machine simply because calling in 
a tech would be expensive.

So, what will the Robot of the future use for a primary OS? Also, until AI’s 
become good enough to write their own code to specifications, there will always 
be a need for software engineers.

Just my 2 cents worth (.2 cents when adjusted for inflation).

-Eric


> On Jun 13, 2018, at 1:59 PM, Matt Birkholz  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2018-06-13 at 13:36 -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
>> It might be a good idea for you, the Original Poster, to declare this
>> thread dead,  before it REALLY gets out of hand.
> 
> But what's a kill-thread command for then?  The discussion about
> whether we should be discussing this is icing on the cake.
> 
> And I like to have cray-cray out in the open (where my wife can get a
> clear shot).
> 
> Video shot, of course, for the courtroom ja? ;-)
> 
> -Puck
> 
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Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[David Schwartz]

How can this NOT be a political topic? 

It's about jobs.  Jobs that are being replaced by automation. At companies who 
are really only interested in PROFITS, not the quality of life of their 
employees or what costs they dump on the community as a result of under-paying 
workers or laying them off. They just don’t care. They answer to their 
shareholders -- a growing percentage of whom are foreigners — not the 
communities where they set up shop and employ their workers.

Profits are mostly a function of the economy and current political winds.

It makes no sense to talk about jobs — current or future -- when you’re 
swimming in a job pool that’s being flushed down the drain by the very people 
who you elected to keep your job intact!

Our POLITICIANS just handed the 100 largest corporations (their shareholders) 
and the wealthiest families in America a $500 billion “gift” that they SAID was 
going to be used to “create jobs.” 

Yet all that windfall has been used for so far has been stock buy-backs, and 
lay-offs preceeding the movement of these same jobs to countries with lower 
labor costs, since now that they’ve got all the money they need to afford huge 
capital investments off-shore without pissing off their shareholders.

If you’re not part of that tiny sliver of the US population (income or net 
asset holdings of 7-figures or more), your elected officials are not 
representing YOUR current or future needs. (I’m not!)

Shareholders don’t give a crap about WHERE the companies they own employ 
people, or where those employees come from! They only care about profits, share 
price, and dividends. Corporations have a fidicuary responsibility to their 
shareholders. PERIOD. Not even their employees. Which is why corporations are 
resisting efforts to reform or immigration laws — the current immigraion laws 
are working very well for them and are HIGHLY PROFITABLE!

SHAREHOLDERS want automation. Why? Because MORE PROFITS. And a reduced need to 
worry about employees of all stripes and colors.


And who cares what CitiGroup says anyway? They’ve just been given $50 billion 
in tax cuts; fines levied against them for breaking the law have been dropped; 
regulations supposedly costing them profits (because they’re designed to 
protect consumers) have been eliminated; and they just reported their most 
profitable quarter in history! Yet lots of folks seem to feel sorry for them 
for whatever reason while their customers and employees are getting screwed.


What I don’t understand is why anybody who’s not a shareholder in any of these 
corporations is defending them or the latest tax policies handing their 
shareholders HUGE stock growth and dividends.

The Fed just announced an uptick in interest rates this morning, with two more 
expected by the end of the year. Because they say inflation is on the rise. 
This hits EVERYBODY in the pocketbook, not just the wealthy.

For most people, our costs are going up, but not our wages. If we’re lucky, 
we’ve got a few years before our jobs are replaced by robots. By then there 
won’t be any unemployment insurance or welfare, because clearly we lost our 
jobs because we’re just “too lazy”. And there won’t be enough tax revenues to 
support any kind of “social safety net”. So if you can’t afford to live today, 
you probably won’t have any savings to help when you lose your job and cannot 
find another one for a while.

Why is anybody even paying attention to warnings from CitiGroup about robots 
replacing their workers? There’s absolutely nothing WE THE PEOPLE can do about 
it if our “elected officials” keep ignoring what WE need and instead implement 
tax and economic policies that benefit Corporations instead.


We in the tech industry like to think that we are in some pivotal way 
responsible for guiding the future of America. That we can ignore politics. 
That we can cheer on corporate malfeasance as long as it’s not the folks paying 
OUR salary. That we can ignore the INDIRECT COSTS TO SOCIETY that arise from 
the technology we’re paid to create that will inexorably lead to our own 
professional demise.

Sooner or later we need to look at the economy and our political environment 
with the same critical eye that we use to build our software.

In the mean time, rest assured that our entire frigging economy is being run by 
people selected by less than 10% of the population (the % of registered voters 
who tend to vote in primaries), becuase the rest are so cynical and resigned 
that they think their voice doesn’t matter. 

And the ones who do vote these days … are tending more and more to be people 
with the most extreme views in society today.

-David Schwartz




> On Jun 13, 2018, at 10:36 AM, Steve Litt  wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2018 09:36:04 -0700
> techli...@phpcoderusa.com wrote:
> 
>> wow David.  Yikes!!  
>> 
>> I posted this link because we are in the center of some big changes
>> that no one is talking about.  I never intended it to become
>> political. 

Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[Matt Birkholz]

On Wed, 2018-06-13 at 13:36 -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
> It might be a good idea for you, the Original Poster, to declare this
> thread dead,  before it REALLY gets out of hand.

But what's a kill-thread command for then?  The discussion about
whether we should be discussing this is icing on the cake.

And I like to have cray-cray out in the open (where my wife can get a
clear shot).

Video shot, of course, for the courtroom ja? ;-)

-Puck

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Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2018 09:36:04 -0700
techli...@phpcoderusa.com wrote:

> wow David.  Yikes!!  
> 
> I posted this link because we are in the center of some big changes
> that no one is talking about.  I never intended it to become
> political.   

Your post was offtopic, and it was obvious, at least to me, that it
would go political.

It might be a good idea for you, the Original Poster, to declare this
thread dead,  before it REALLY gets out of hand.

SteveT
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Re: 10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[David Schwartz]

Well, the Good News for folks on this list is that the software industry has 
still done virtually nothing to improve our own productivity, and as a result 
the Dept of Labor is still estimating a general shortage of over a million 
programmers by 2020. 

We (as in WE THE PEOPLE) should be investing heavily in developing new 
technological solutions to replace these jobs, as well as retraiing people 
displaced by corporations more interested in their shareholders than society. 

But instead, “shrinking the government” is leaving this investment to the same 
companies who are laying them off and complaining that there aren’t enough 
“qualified employees” to build the next generation of technology already. 

And instead of investing in educating the masses (or even retraining the people 
they’re laying off), they’re buying back stock and investing their profits in 
off-shore facilities where they can hire labor at a fraction of the cost of US 
labor. 

Who needs to deal with immigrants when Congress is giving you billions of 
dollars in free money to invest in whatever you can create that gives your 
shareholders the greatest ROI they can possibly get?

To add insult to injury, as much as Trump hates immigrants, I’m not holding my 
breath until he announces unlimited H-1B visas for people with degrees in 
“in-demand” fields like software and engineering (STEM) from countries with an 
excess of graduates in those fields, like India, Pakistan, China, S. Korea, 
Japan, and others.

As long as Trump is in office, your best investment is going to be in the stock 
market. Because wages will remain flat, layoffs will increase, the job market 
will shrink, job retraining will disappear, unemployment benefits will shrink, 
welfare will be harder to get, and Trump will do whatever it takes to appease 
his billionaire buddies.

-David Schwartz



> On Jun 12, 2018, at 6:42 PM, techli...@phpcoderusa.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> The article says in part "...advances in automation will lead to the loss of 
> over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies by 2020.".
> 
> https://u2206659.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=3cK2FVJjyu2N-2Bxco034fZqJRbsRcAE6uYSiUnqml3q-2B94ZIAHmSIs4JcyImTUqpcRn4JbAT8slIOmR24WnVTe3Z0zBv0cYCHdW4PZu7Ao416k99vAd1fjxyrvO7KcqKP_6lpMB7VLnN-2Fj9-2FEErg8-2F-2BMBpb5QxlByTgv2M3fbWD9ebvC-2BWrN3h7jImK8EVWYBerEEJnEgs-2FxkggngyJL9iLYHnn1zfDDTunNZKb85Pp2GA2APtJxfAFrwn1VvWy9PAsm1kvTJH1lq3NzRh9TdemmSCq5fPaL5hckbOLSVPvKQBZkgKvxCrEYyUPXN628YieQBae-2FRLeoXJfAb8qatRFbS1x6YtStct3VGm2OEaGvM-3D
>  
> 
> I'm starting to see lots of articles like this one.  I'm reading that whole 
> industries will be wiped out within the next 20 years. 
> 

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10,000 jobs could be lost to robots says Citi

[techlists]

The article says in part "...advances in automation will lead to the
loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies
by 2020.". 

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32240/1-jobs-could-be-lost-to-robots-says-citi


I'm starting to see lots of articles like this one.  I'm reading that
whole industries will be wiped out within the next 20 years.---
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