Posted on 01/25/2013 4:19:12 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
WASHINGTON — They seem right out of a Hollywood fantasy, and they are: Cars that drive themselves have appeared in movies like “I, Robot” and the television show “Knight Rider.”
Now, three years after Google invented one, automated cars could be on their way to a freeway near you. In the U.S., California and other states are rewriting the rules of the road to make way for driverless cars. Just one problem: What happens to the millions of people who make a living driving cars and trucks — jobs that always have seemed sheltered from the onslaught of technology?
“All those jobs are going to disappear in the next 25 years,” predicts Moshe Vardi, a computer scientist at Rice University in Houston. “Driving by people will look quaint; it will look like a horse and buggy.”
If automation can unseat bus drivers, urban deliverymen, long-haul truckers, even cabbies, is any job safe?
Vardi poses an equally scary question: “Are we prepared for an economy in which 50 percent of people aren’t working?”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“In the year 2525...”
>>Vardi poses an equally scary question: “Are we prepared for an economy in which 50 percent of people aren’t working?”<<
That would be called “the obama economy.”
Skynet??
The Matrix??
If we are so dependent on machines that nobody knows how they work, that would be a critical point where Man would be obsolete.
I remember them predicting that computers would eliminate paper and we would become a paperless society. Hasn’t happened. I think we use more paper now than before computers.
Exactly what I was thinking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic
Well, we can always become government “workers.”
Roll in the socialist workers utopia.
We all get paid equally via the government printing press.
>> I think we use more paper now than before computers.<<
I personally don’t print ANYTHING except for contractually-required deliverables that need physical signatures.
We would probably be fighting the androids.
Mo WAY am I clicking on that link! It is bad enough the THOUGHT of that song started echoing in my head!
If I actually HEAR it It will take a physical hammer and a nail in my ear to get it out!
Sure we will...fixing robots and computers.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a prophetic book in 1952 called “Player Piano” that addressed many of these issues. While he got some of the technology specifics wrong (e.g., use of vacuum tubes), he got right that most jobs would be eliminated due to automation. There were basically two classes of people: a relatively small group of manager & engineers and citizens. A small sliver of citizens did jobs that could not be automated (like barbers), but the vast majority either joined the military or worked in the “Reeks and Wrecks” (e.g., roadwork), Almost all citizens got a standard package that included housing, food, and healthcare, but little $$ for vices. In contrast, the managers and engineers lived like the 1%.
Funny that Kurt never addressed what became of lawyers....
Yep. Whine and complain.
>>Funny that Kurt never addressed what became of lawyers....<<
The first to be placed against the wall when the Revolution came?
Because people in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s run companies still. In enough time, when they are gone, paperless is the way to go. My little inexpensive flash drive can hold around the equivalent of 48,000 books.
In the year 3000.....poptarts hunt men
Hopefully more people will take up Bridge.
Just wait till you can get a totally artificial, interactive, yet realistic porn experience injected right into your neurons. When that happens, look out. Civilization may not survive it.
A normal society has 3/4 of the adults working at or around home ~ whatever that entails, and 100% of the children engaged in serious learning.
A normal society isn't what we've been living in since the Medieval Warm Period.
The only route is OWNERSHIP. We can spend our time in an endless series of important business meetings.
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