The Robots are coming (Page 66)

ghostgeek: A recent report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General found that 96 percent of VA facilities reported at least one “severe” occupational shortage as of December 2018. Thirty-nine percent reported 20 or more shortages. Mercer, a healthcare consultancy, estimates the United States will need to hire 2.3 million healthcare workers by 2025 to address the labor gap.

Robots could be key to helping drive down the costs of care and help medical workers do more with smaller teams. ABB estimates there will be some 60,000 medical robots on the job within five years or so. Robots, along with telemedicine, data mining, advances in genetics and so much more, are radically redefining what it means to visit the doctor.

[ https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/meet-yumi-a-robot-nurse-built-to-make-the-rounds ]

ghostgeek:

kittybobo34: Perhaps the two problems will solve each other. Lack of young workers, and lack of jobs due to automation. Ether way, the capitalist system will need some adjustments to deal with the lack of opportunity in the job market.

ghostgeek: Maybe robots should be paid wages. Then governments could tax them and use the proceeds to pay humans to sit on their backsides and eat pizza.

kittybobo34: Great idea Ghost.... it occurred to me that whom ever owns the robots, would in effect be just like the old south slave owner.. in economics terms that is.

ghostgeek: Emancipate the robots and get them unionised.

kittybobo34: What will the work landscape look like when one world factory can make all the motorcycles, one factory makes all the cars..etc.. in that future world, having a job would be practically a miracle. How would such an economy even work.

ghostgeek: Work doesn't have to be useful. People could be paid to pray to the gods.

ghostgeek: Pretty much what organised religion is about.

chronology: Ghost, I can still remember going into Offices back in the 1960s where there were dozens of typists. By the 1990s there was not a single typist anywhere, everything is computerised.
The difference with the coming wave of automation is that it will replace such professions as doctors, pilots, train drivers, ships captain's, air traffic controllers etc. People who have enjoyed respected positions in society. Even they accept you cannot halt progress.

A point you miss is that full time 'work' is not normal life for humans. Conquered people were used as slaves. But most people did nothing all day. When humans began storing grains it meant that leasure was the every day activity. Robot automation will simply return people to the old way of life. But unlike in the past people will not be breeding like rabbits. Eventually human population will drop to a few hundred million World wide. Japan is already entering a new era of rapidly falling population. But some people have their doubts about that being a good thing. Japanese people are the smartest humans of all races. And soon they will be vastly reduced in numbers. That will be a real loss to all humans.

kittybobo34: it is an interesting cultural evolution coming. Hopefully we can get through this with minimal damage. That this is happening right at the time of climate upheaval is unfortunate.

ghostgeek: Let's all admit that we don't really know what the future's going to be like. We can guess and make predictions but life has a habit of turning out different to how anybody expected.

kittybobo34: Chrono... "Returned to the old way of life" People used to work all the time.. Leisure time is a product of civilization. Prior to that one had to work to survive. But,, if things keep going the way they have been,, we can expect fewer work hours and longer leisure time. We could expand the jobs simply by going to a 30 hour work week. (4 shifts of 6 hours per day) For those that want more, 2 jobs would be doable.

chronology: 'People used to work all the time'. Like all your other views on Ancient history this answer will be interesting am sure. Care to explain how hunter gatherer communities worked all the time? In Alaska today American hunter gather families go on hunting and fishing trips, they preserve animals they catch. People like Mrs Hailstone teach her children how to make tents and clothing. If that is what you mean by work then yes.
When the Super Cities of Nineveh and Babylon were made possible by Grain Stores for the most part there was little work to be done apart from the construction of weapons and farming.

If Mrs Hailstone could have visited Nineveh 3000 years ago from her home in Alaska she would be in Awe of the Great City and its military industrial complex. A vast super urban city, surrounded by walls that 80 metres high and 20 meters across.

kittybobo34: I wasn't thinking that far back in time.. Most men would not consider hunting to be work,, then again they didn't have to do the womens job, which was dawn to dusk.

ghostgeek: Ah, retirement. It’s the never-ending weekend, that well-deserved oasis of freedom and rest we reach after decades of hard work. As long as we have good health and sufficient savings, we’ll be OK, right?

Not quite. Some studies have linked retirement to poorer health and a decline in cognitive functioning — at times resulting in as much as double the rate of cognitive aging. This leaves people at a greater risk of developing various types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

[ https://getpocket.com/explore/item/think-retirement-is-smooth-sailing-a-look-at-its-potential-effects-on-the-brain?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB ]

chronology: Ghost, one common problem for some senior's when they retire is that their wine and spirit collection's become more attractive and more visited. When they no longer have to worry about being breathalysed they can just relax and enjoy the quality wines and whiskies they have set aside for their fine collection. I remember one old chap who smashed down the bollard at his apartment building about three times. He was living a senior's dream of being the only person left in a pleasant old building which he had all to himself. But the whisky bottle did seem to be more attractive to him. And when he set off for some errands in his car sometimes he forgot about the bollard and smashed it down a few times. Even an old friend who visited him most days enjoyed her drink. She would occasionally greet me with a tilt of a can of super strong lager she enjoyed. Another senior I recall would return from his shopping trips with a case or two of wine, and every day down a bottle in the evening. Another old chap enjoyed his six cans of beer every night. Another old chap kept whiskey bottle's stashed all over the place. A favourite hiding place was in the bushes outside his apartment. A cabby was telling me once about a old customer his firm had. He would phone up for a cab so drunk none of his words made any sense. But staff new his voice and sent a cab to his address. When the cab arrived he would stagger into the cab and drawl gibberish to the driver who knew where he wanted to go from past trips and just drove him there.

But most senior's seem to handle their booze well enough. But they certainly seem to enjoy their tipples in their old age.

ghostgeek: Could be they've seen what's coming and are happiest when it's concealed by a drunken haze.

ghostgeek: Amazon's use of robots in its warehouses has led to more injuries for human workers, an investigation says.

The Center for Investigative Reporting said it had acquired internal records for 150 warehouses over four years.

At the most common kind of Amazon "fulfilment centre", serious injuries are 50% higher for those that have robots than those without, it says.

[ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54355803 ]

ghostgeek: Amazon first introduced robots into its warehouses after acquiring a robotics manufacturer in 2012.

But workers speaking to Reveal said the robots ferrying items through the warehouse meant they were now confined to workstations, standing still and repeating monotonous tasks.

On top of that, the robots were much more efficient - meaning that productivity expectations for human workers had increased too. Pickers at the warehouse, for example, said they had seen their expected number of items to handle grow from 100 to 400 an hour.

Internal documents show that facilities with the robots have injury rates about 50% higher than those without, the report says.

Last year alone, there were 14,000 "serious" injuries - requiring days off or job restrictions - and the overall injury rate was almost double the industry standard, it says.

A few warehouses reported as many as five times as many injuries as the industry average, measured in serious injuries per 100 workers.

[ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54355803 ]

ghostgeek: Could explain why Amazon are always advertising for workers.

kittybobo34: I got to tour their facilities, when they were investing in Fidelity's 401k program. They literally work their people to the physical limit.. First sign your slowing down they fire you. It's a tough job.

ghostgeek: The way the job market is stacking up, it could soon be the only employment on offer for a lot of people. Not a happy thought.

chronology: Ghost, 14000 serious injuries? I work in a place where in the last 15 year's there has not been a single serious injury. And they use fawk lift trucks and have picking and lifting Robot's. That figure has got to be wrong.
American worker's are notorious for abusing drugs like crystal meth, so maybe that could contribute to the sky high injury rate you say is happening. But I doubt management would tolerate that kind of disruption to production from Drug abuse.

kittybobo34: Chron... there is just allot of stupid people out there.